Epoch of Ephemeral Incandescence V (Touhou Fan Fiction)
by TheOVJM
Summary: You think highly of yourself, like always. Highly? More like lowly. For I don't want this in order to seek greatness. I do this to atone for my sins. To somehow relieve myself of my burden. Well, I can't blame your for that. Although I guess the same goes for her as well, don't you think? You know her already yourself. You know that she's a lost cause. Aye, that I do.


**Epoch of Ephemeral Incandescence V**

Every step Flandre took felt weird. The ground didn't feel solid and she had to watch her every step so that she wouldn't trip over. She could only gawk with terrified awe as she descended down from a tiny hill on top of which she had found herself from. The scenery around her, all the rubble, were everything but what she had expected. The black, red and orange sky didn't ease her confusion not to mention that ominous black sphere in the sky. Flandre caught herself once again just blankly looking at it and she actually had to force herself to look away. It was just so mesemrizing.

"This... this isn't at all how it is supposed to be. Where are all the trees? The mountains? What happened to all of it?" Flandre could only think to herself as she slowly made her way further into that strange and twisted scenery.

"And on top of all, where are all the people? Where is everyone?" Flandre uttered out loud as she stopped, her feet slightly sinking into the rubble like into fresh snow or into fine sand on a beach. Flandre took a moment to gather her thoughts. She had promised herself that she'd know when she was in the outside world when she'd find traces of the Oni. But now when she knew for a fact that she was in the outside world she became confused. Where were the Oni? Why couldn't she find even a trace of them? Why couldn't she find a trace of anybody? This was the outside world, it should be brimming with people. Although now when she thought about it further she didn't know if she should consider herself lucky or not when she didn't meet the people of the outside world. But what truly boggled her mind was the absence of any traces that Oni had been there. She had first hand witnessed how they had been sent to the outside world.

"Did I emerge in some different place than they did? But I went to the outside world from almost same spot as them. Shouldn't I also emerge where they did?" Flandre thought as she looked around herself. She then decided to investigate her surroundings a little better. The first thing that caught her eye was one of the crumbling buildings near her. As she approached it she could immediately tell that it had been vacant for a really long time. It had windows but they had no glass panels. The building was made mainly from concrete. All the paint, if it ever had any, had worn off a long time ago leaving the concrete bare which eventually had led even that to crumble revealing the iron foundings bare on some spots like a skeleton. The building had also apparently collapsed at some point since it was missing its top. To be honest Flandre didn't know if it was top, it could very well be its middle or even the bottom part. Flandre had never seen sky scrapers up close so she really didn't know their dimensions.

Flandre then touched the surface of the building. The concrete chipped easily and as Flandre took a small pebble sized piece of it. It crumbled to dust almost immediately between her fingers. She looked at the dust for a moment and then at the building. At first she thought about investigating the building but seeing how easily that piece of concrete broke she decided that investigating that building would be too dangerous. It could literally collapse from the slightest of breeze. That is if there was a breeze. During her short time on the outside world thus far there hadn't been any wind to speak of. The air itself felt stagnant and musty. Like in a room that hadn't been visited in a long time. It was also pretty warm. So warm in fact that it was pretty uncomfortable.

Flandre then knelt down to further inspect the rubble that consisted all of the ground she could see. The first thing she picked up was a simple rusty piece of metal. It seemed like a bit of bent iron plate. It didn't spark any interest within her so she just threw it away. The next thing she picked up was a metal parts of some kind of plyiers. Of course Flandre didn't know what they were or what they were used for. The only thing she could tell was that none of it was natural. The plyiers also looked pretty old since only the metal remained and even that was rusted beyond repair. After that a glint caught her eye. Flandre dag a little into the rubble only to pull out a pristine looking wheel with rubber on it. It was rather big. Of course Flandre wouldn't know what a bicycle wheel was but she could still tell that it was in pristine condition. No rust what so ever. And to top it off the rubber was unharmed, it even had air still within it.

"Strange... this looks brand new, what ever it is. If it was just made, then how did it end up here, buried in the rubble?" Flandre uttered while looking at the wheel. She then put it down and picked up a long but thin looking pipe she had apparently dug up with the wheel. She looked at it. It looked considerable older than the wheel but it didn't have any visible rust on it. Flandre twisted and turned it to inspect it. She then finally thought to swipe the surface of the pipe which ended up revealing a good looking chrome surface. Sadly Flandre couldn't see her reflection from it. However the insides of the pipe weren't so beautiful. The insides were black and smelled quite bad. Flandre then threw the pipe away and started to wonder the situation. It really didn't add up, any of it. Some items looked to be too old to still be around and some items seemed too new to be just scattered randomly around.

However it wouldn't help her to just stand there and wonder. She needed to get going. There was nothing around her that would seem in any way important. No signs of Oni or anyone else for that matter. But just leaving to some direction may not be the best idea. She had no idea where she needed to go so if she went even slightly to the wrong direction she would never find anything. But nevertheless she couldn't just stand there so she had to choose. She stood and looked around herself for a moment before deciding to continue to the same direction she had initially taken when descending from that tiny hill. Flandre turned to face the direction she had chose and saw the fields stretching into the distance with only tiny hills and few dilapidated looking buildings dotting the landscape.

"This better work," she uttered before taking the first few steps towards the distant horizon. The ground sank like sand beneath her feet with every step and made her almost trip over in few occasions. Besides, walking was way too slow if she wanted to reach the culprit in time. Flandre took off from the ground. She rose about to the same hight as the buildings reached so she would see a little further for any signs of change in the landscape or any other points of interest if she were to even come across any. As she rose higher she could only see more and more of the same landscape. It was as if there was no end to it all. And to be honest, for all she knew this all could very well be endless. There hadn't been many normal things occuring recently so she wouldn't be surprised if these plains of rubble truly continued forever.

Flandre didn't want to think about it. She had to stay focused onto her goal. She needed to find whoever was behind all of this. They had to be in the outside world. There was just no other way. If Marisa had believed so then so would she and she would not let Marisa down. These were Flandre's thoughts as she picked up her pace as she flew across the plains. The clouds and the buildings were whirling by her and the heaps of rubble below her were rolling by. The sphere on the sky however wouldn't move, shift or change. It stayed still like a watchful eye tracking Flandre no matter where she went or how fast. It made her feel uncomfortable. It made her remember one of her hallucinations when she fought me. Well, it wasn't really a fight. But as Flandre flew she caught herself multiple times just looking at the black sphere in the sky. Every time she noticed herself doing this she had to force herself to look away from it so she wouldn't stray from her course, if she hadn't done it already. To be honest she couldn't tell. The landscape looked so similiar in every direction.

Flandre took a quick glance to her surroundings again expecting to see all the same hills of rubble and wrecked buildings but this time there was something else as well. To her left, in the distance there was something rising from the rubble. It was larger than any of the buildings and it didn't resemble them in any way. She must have missed it popping from behind the horizon while looking at the sphere the last time. She slowed down her pace until she stopped and just levitated on her place for a moment trying to figure out what it was. However it was too far away so she decided to change her course to inspect what it was. It was clearly far away, just visible near the horizon but she started to get closer quickly. As the moments passed and Flandre got ever closer to that thing she started to realize that it was humongous. And when she finally got close enough to see what it was she realized that it was in fact a mountain. Or a peak of one to be exact. Flandre flew ever closer and she could see as this lonely peak rose from the rubble. And unlike the rest of the landscape it was clear from any and all rubble, even if it was as gray as its surroundings.

Flandre flew towards the peak until she finally reached a small ledge on the side of the mountain that she could use to land. And as she did this she realized how high she had had to fly in order to reach it. The mountain was massive. Far larger than the Youkai Mountain back in Gensokyo. And she didn't even know how far deeper into the rubble the roots of the mountain lead. Flandre touched the side of the mountain. At least that was stone like she had always known.

"So there still is some nature left... Is it all buried under all that junk?" Flandre uttered as she looked behind herself toward the plains. She then looked at the mountain again and only now realized that there was no moss what so ever growing on the surface of the mountain's slopes. It was just bare stone. Flandre then took flight again. She started to circle the mountain to take a better look at it. She quickly learned that it had two peaks. One lower and one higher. The slopes were also pretty steep. That however was to be expected from a mountain but there were many vertical drops on the slopes of the mountain making it pretty hard to climb if one couldn't fly. There was also absolutely no snow what so ever. In the pictures that Flandre had seen in the books she had read in Patchouli's library the mountains had mostly snow covered peaks. This one however didn't have any snow. This left Flandre confused. Of course, anyone else would have known that all the snow would melt in such a warm temperatures but Flandre had never even seen snow before so she couldn't have known this.

There was also one other thing that caught Flandre's attention. The fact that this mountain stood alone. Back in those pictures she had seen there always were more mountains accompanying themselves but this peak stood on its own. It crossed Flandre's mind that maybe this was the only peak tall enough to not be covered by all that rubble but even she found it hardly believable. There should be more peaks rising from the ground but she couldn't spot any. However at that moment Flandre stopped. She hadn't spotted any more peaks but she did spot something. Near the foot of the mountain there was something that caught her eye. There was something in the rubble that she hadn't seen before because she had arrived from the other side of the mountain and it had hidden it from Flandre's view. Flandre started to descent. And as she got closer it became clear that it was some kind of a hole in the ground. No, not a hole, some kind of a ravine. It was large but still small enough to be easily hidden by the mountain.

Flandre flew closer and landed near what she figured was the edge of this ravine. And immediately when she touched the ground she could feel slight vibrations from the ground. There was something going on in that ravine. Flandre then immediately took running towards the edge to see what it held within and when she reached the edge she almost had to pull back from the shock. Not because of what she saw but because of the hot air gushing out from the ravine. Flandre had to hold her face for a moment before she got somewhat used to the heat and could take a look within. The ravine was deep. Really deep. So deep in fact that she couldn't even see the bottom before the darkness took over the view. But that wasn't what impressed her. What was truly breathtaking was that on the walls of the ravine there were multiple waterfalls coming straight from within them and pouring down into the darkness of the ravine. However most of the water she saw vaporized before it even disappeared into the darkness. The heat within must have been intense if the water vaporized so quickly. Flandre stared at the scene before her eyes as long as she could before the heat became too uncomfortable to her and she had to back away from the edge.

"So... there is water within this rubble... But where is it all going? What's down there?" Flandre thought to herself as she got closer to the edge again to take another look. As she looked down again she realized that the walls of the ravine were just rubble, there was no stone, no dirt, nothing natural on the walls. The rubble continued as far down as she could see. Seeing this made her uncomfortable. To think that it all went so deep. The walls were also pretty much all rusted from all the water vapors. The ravine was also just as large as it had seemed from the air. It was over hundred meters to get across and way larger in length. This wasn't going to be a problem for Flandre though because even if the ravine was gushing out hot air it wouldn't be difficult to fly across. It just boggled Flandre's mind, where was all that water coming from and what was within that ravine that made it so hot. But even if she was curious Flandre still had no time to investigate nor would she have even gone down into the ravine even if she did have time. All the water gushing out from the walls of the ravine would have made it too dangerous for her.

But before Flandre decided to continue she decided to test if the ravine had a solid floor. She picked up a piece of metal from the ground and started heating it. As she held it in her hand the piece of metal started to glow. When she thought the piece was glowing bright enough she proceeded to throw it into the ravine. She aimed at the spot where there was much less water pouring in so that the piece of metal wouldn't come in contact with it and cool down. Flandre watched as the piece fell, and fell, and fell. It fell into the darkness until Flandre could no longer see its glow. The ravine was too deep for that.

"It's no use, it is as if it goes on forever," Flandre muttered to herself with thoughtful look on her face. She had hoped to figure out at least something about this msyterious world around her through this ravine but all she was left with were more questions. Flandre couldn't do anything but sigh in frustration as she scratched her hair and was about to get going again. She had to leave the ravine and the mountain behind herself and continue her search. She then took flight again and in one swift dash flew across the ravine. She could feel the heat rising from the depths briefly as she flew. While looking down she saw the waters gushing towards the darkness and then rising up again as mist. When she had made across to the other side of the ravine Flandre landed once again to look behind herself and take in the view for a moment. She knew she had to hurry but she also realized that what she was witnessing was unique. This kind of chance wouldn't occur ever again. Even if she managed to resolve this or not.

As she looked behind herself, she saw the black sky partially covered by the red clouds and mist and beyond those the sphere. And right before her were the ravine and the mountain. The other carving itself deep into the rubble and the other rising up from it. It was breathtaking to be honest. Flandre breathed in the still air and for the first time in a long while she felt free. There was no one breathing onto her neck or no immediate threat anywhere to be seen. It was just her and the land. It was truly mesmerizing feeling for her. She could take off and fly away. She could do what ever she wanted. This world could be her own sandbox and she could build what ever kind of castle she could wish for. But even now her feeling of freedom were cut short when she remembered what still kept her focused on her duty. Her promise to Marisa and her guilt. The guilt of this all indirectly being her fault. She would have to fix this. No sooner could she wish for more freedom.

Flandre was caught in her thoughts so deeply that she didn't even realize that she wasn't alone anymore. And when she finally returned to the reality again it took few moments until she even realized that someone was calling for her. Not by her name but someone was calling from behind her and it really felt that it was being directed at her.

"Hey! Excuse me! It's not often we see anyone else here! Would you allow us to have a word with you!?" The voice yelled. Flandre was surprised by this. She hadn't seen anyone during her time on the outside world so far. So hearing another person's voice all of a sudden made her flinch a little. Flandre turned around slowly to take a look at who was calling out for her. About fifty meters away from her were standing five people. Two men, one woman and two kids. One boy, one girl. One of the men was standing closer to her than the rest of them and it was evident that he had been the one calling. The man was vawing her arm at her in seemingly friendly manner. Flandre was so bemused that she could only respond with a sligth vawe of her own hand.

"It's good to see other people for a change! Don't worry, we're friendly! Wanna come and have a little talk with us!? Been long since I had a conversation with someone else than my family," The man yelled and laughed a little.

"Family...? W-what? People...? Where did they...?" Flandre managed to mumble as she started taking slow and careful steps towards the people she was seeing before her eyes.

"Don't worry! We'd just like to share a few words witha fellow traveler," The man yelled once more. This made Flandre stop for a second.

"Traveler? What do you mean by that?" Flandre stopped and asked from the man as she had gotten notably closer him. Definitely close enough for her to see his features clearly and for him to see her. The man and the rest of his family had really crude looking makeshift clothes. It seemed that they were sewn together from multiple other pieces of cloth. They were also carrying quite uncomfortable looking backpacks on their backs that too looked like thay had been made from scrap material and had many weird looking devices hanging from them.

"Well, yeah. What else would you do in this land but to always travel on forward. It's not like the paradise will come to you anyway," The man said and laughed a little while looking at Flandre. The rest of the family looked at Flandre with rather distrusting looks on their faces. That look was evenly matched by Flandre.

"What... paradise?" Flandre then finally asked in confusion. She couldn't understand anything the man was going on about.

"Are you trying to pull my leg here? The _paradise, _you know where we're all headed... wait. Are you telling me that you actually don't know? Wait, could it be..? Could it be that you're a newcommer?" The man asked with ever more excited tone and look on his face. Flandre just tilted her head and looked at him.

"You just arrived here? You only just appeared to this land, am I right?" The man asked once more to which Flandre finally gave a slight nod.

"Well I be damned. It is a rare thing to come across someone in this gods forsaken wasteland, let alone someone who has just arrived. It is my honour miss," The man said and made a humoristically over acted bow.

"Are you... do you live here? Are there more people?" Flandre managed to finally ask after being flustered by the man's attitude.

"Why of course. There aint any other places to live really, heh. And people are popping in all the time. The world has become a strange place. Oh but forgive my manners, my name is Stephen, this is my wife Margaret and my two lovely kids. And this is Enrich, he's kind of a family friend," The man happily said as he pointed behind himself towards the rest of his group who were still looking at Flandre quite sceptically.

"Now then, what migth be your name?" The man asked as he looked back at Flandre while offering his hand to a hand shake and giving a toothy smile from behind his unkept beard.

"My name is Flandre," Flandre responded quietly but didn't offer her own hand to a shake. The man looked at Flandre for a moment and tilted his head before retracting his arm to his side.

"Well there's a name I haven't heard before. I have to admit that you're wearing clothes I don't recognize. Where would you be from, young miss?" The man continued with rather intrigued look on his face.

"Uhhh... I'm from Gensokyo," Flandre managed to stammer out while fiddling her fingers.

"Gensokyo? Never heard of that kind of a place. But then again, people who I've met usually talk about places, people and things I've never heard about. I've gotten used to it," The man replied and laughed again.

"My father told me that he had once come across a talking raccoon with a stick. You never really know what to expect," The man said and let out a hearted laughter.

"You've told us that story a thousand times and I believe your old man less and less every time," The man who Stephen had named Enrich replied with his arms akimbo.

"But no matter. It seems you've lost your parents. I'm terribly sorry, I really do feel for you. Many people lose their loved ones upon coming here. Enrich arrived to this place when he was barely 20 years old. He told me he was going to marry a girl soon, but then... well, he found himself here. That's a story you start to hear from time to time from different people. So many tragedies and so many confused looks when they talk about this place," The man continued with his tone getting more serious. His family behind him had started to ease up a little as well.

"Actually, I don't have any parents. I came here alone," Flandre finally said with serious tone and look on her face. The man looked at Flandre for a moment. And then squatted down before her.

"I- I'm terribly sorry to hear that. It's always awful to hear about kids losing their parents," Stephen said with compassionate look on his face as he looked at Flandre. Flandre then perked up a little when she realized that this man didn't actually know what she was and thought that she was just a lost kid.

"Uhh, actually, I'm fine, thank you. You see, I'm not really what you think I-," Flandre started to stutter but Stephen only let out an audible sigh as he stood up.

"It's okay, it's okay. Denial is a normal state of shock. Take all the time you need to cope with that," Stephen said while holding out her palm with reassuring tone. Flandre on the other hand just tilted her head in confusion.

"But still, as a father and a responsible adult I have to ask you to come with us. I couldn't live with myself if I left a kid out onto the plains to starve to death. We can take care of you. Maybe try to find a bigger group so you can live and travel with them more easily," Stephen said and glanced at his wife who gave him a careful nod.

"Travel? Where... where are you even traveling. I can't see anything on these fields," Flandre then said and pointed at the fields of empty rubble around them with rather bemused tone and a look on her face.

"Don't worry, I'll explain once we get moving. It's no good to stop for long periods of time. No progress made by standing still. Come on. Oh, and you'd also probably want to get rid of these ridiculous things on your back. The journey will be tiring," Stephen said and tried to reach for one of Flandre's wings but this was only met by few quick steps taken back by Flandre who obviously looked a bit freaked out.

"Woah, woah, easy there, yeasy, I didn't mean to scare 'ya. You can keep them, suit yourself, but don't tell me I didn't warn you," Stephen uttered with apologetic tone and look on his face as he turned back towards his family who had started to walk and was signing Flandre to follow him. Flandre quickly looked around herself. She knew that she couldn't waste her time with these people. But even knowing this she started walking after Stephen and his family. They seemed to know where they were going and if they had spent more time here than Flandre they might be able to shed some light onto everything that's happening.

Stephen glanced behind him and smiled a little when he saw Flandre following them.

"I'm glad you decided to come with us. A new face is always a welcome one. The journey gets tedious sometimes," Stephen said with cheerful tone.

"Okay, so, where were you heading again?" Flandre finally asked after catching up with Stephen and his family again.

"Ah yes, the paradise. Well, it's more of a hope than an actual destination. Something of an urban legend. A legend that everyone is clinging to. It is actually near impossible to find anyone who hasn't heard of that legend here. Because everyone who arrives here is told about it almost immediately. Like I'm telling to you right now," Stephen said and glanced at Flandre.

"Why's that? If it is just a legend...," Flandre said and looked at Stepehn with rather confused look on her face.

"Because that's all we have. We can only cling to a hope that we may someday reach this paradise and not live the remainder of our lives in this... cursed heap of rubble," Stephen said and his tone and the look on his face darkened immediately.

"Tell me more about this paradise," Flandre then asked. Her curiosity had been peaked. This might be a clue to where she needed to head.

"Of course. The legend says that is near endless realm like the one we're in right now. People say it is in the north-east. And you see that black ball in the sky? That's in the east. It is the only way we can navigate. People say that that ball appeared in the place of the sun in the morning and when they found themselves here that ball was still up there, in the sky, sitting above the eastern horizon. I myself have never witnessed such thing. I was born here. I don't know what sun is or sunrise. I just know what I've been told," Stephen said and looked at Flandre.

"But forgive me, I got carried away. So where was I? Ah, yes, the paradise. It is said to be an endless stretch of rolling green hills where cool air breathes to your face. Where crystal pure waters flow through the lands where we don't have to struggle ever again. That's what we hope is true," Stephen then continued with plaintive look on his face.

"And we're supposedly heading towards it right now?" Flandre asked while looking into the horizon.

"That's right. We actually have this agreement with other travelers we've met along our way, that were to someone find the paradise, they'll fire a signal with this," Stephen said and dag out an orange tube with a handle. Flandre looked at it with curious look on her face. She didn't know what a flare gun was.

"It is actually almost as known as the legend itself. That if you see a signal fired from a this kind of a pistol you're supposed to fire your own so that the others migth see it as well and then fire their own. It is meant to be a signal of hope. A pulse that will be sent once the paradise is found and everyone can head to the right direction," Stephen said and put the pistol back into his pocket again. Flandre stared at him for a moment and then back at the horizon.

"I'm guessing you haven't seen any signals?" Flandre then broke the silence.

"No, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't exist. Maybe it is just so far away. I'm just hoping my kids would be able to see it. I don't care if I myself am too old to reach it. But just let my kids and their kids enjoy it. That's all I ask," Stephen said and the look on his face turned visibly sad and this made Flandre feel a bit sad herself as well. But she perked up quickly when she remembered one question she hadn't thought to ask before.

"By the way, how do you survive here? How can you find enough to eat? I see nothing but junk and withered structures everywhere?" Flandre asked and felt pleased when the look on Stephen's face moved away from sadness.

"Oh yeah, I guess that would trouble you at first but it is actually more simple than you might think. You see, I don't know why but progression of time is... weird here. The rubble you see in front of you everywhere, be it old or new, is just the surface. Beneath it there's everything you could ever need to survive. There's food, water, supplies. Everything can be found by just starting to dig. We do it every now and then when we're running low on supplies of our own. We just set up our camp, get comfortable, dig for some supplies and then sleep our worries away. That's also the reason why there aren't really thieves anywhere. Anyone can just get what they want from the ground itself. But of course that doesn't mean that every passer by would be an honest traveler like us," Stephen said and the look on his face darkened again. Flandre looked at him waiting for him to continue.

"I guess it is the best if you know. If you ever have to look after yourself. Be wary of people here, kid. There are some evil individuals. My wife, before she and I met. She had arrived here with her family. She was just a kid back then. Her family was taken in by this small group of people. They promised them prtection and shelter but instead, they killed her whole family when they were sleeping and kept my wife as a toy. It... *sigh It sickens me to even think about it. That's why she was pretty wary of you. Even if you are just a child. You can forgive her, can you?" Stephen explained and then glanced at Flandre. Flandre just responded with a quiet nod. She was starting to understand what these people were going through. What everyone was going through. Only now was she starting to understand the full extend of what this whole incident had caused. It hadn't only disrupted and endangered few lives but already ruined and ended so many. So many that she wasn't even aware of. She could only imagine how much more seriously this all would have been taken if everyone knew of this suffering from the very begining.

Flandre decided that she would accompany the family for a while. She could at least give them some company. She thought that she oved then that much. During the walk she kept eyeing the other family members. Margaret, Stephen's wife as he had said, looked visibly tired and little anxious. Flandre could catch her looking at her multiple tmes during their walk. She could only figure that she didn't feel comfortable in the company of strangers, even if they thought she was just a kid. Then there was Enrich. His face looked worn but he seemed calm. His almost shoulder length brown hair was starting to turn a little grey and his beard was much more well kept than Stephen's. It seemed he didn't really mind Flandre's presence. And finally there were the two kids. The older one, the boy, seemed like he was on the brink of adulthood. He was almost as tall as his father and had few strands of beard already sticking out from his chin. He didn't seem to mind Flandre's presence either but she could catch him glancing at her once or twice. And then there was his sister. She was clearly younger than her brother and if Flandre had been a kid it would have seemed that they would have been around the same age. The girl, unlike her mother, seemed very curious about Flandre. She kept peeking at Flandre from behind her mother with ever so curious look on her face. Flandre actually found this quite amusing. She lost the count of how many times she had caught the girl staring at her during their walk. It was so many. But eventually their walk came to a stop. Stephen said that they would stop between two small hills they had been passing by.

"Alright people. I think this is enough for now. Let's set up our camp and get comfortable. We've earned the rest," Stephen declared and stretched his back and arms. His family seemed tired. Everyone sat down immediately when they stopped just to catch their breaths before they would set up their camp.

Flandre had sat to the side of the other small hill between which they had stopped. The family, after a short rest started unpacking their gear and preparing the spot for a camp. How they did it seemed really fluent. It was like they had been raised for that single purpose. In under half an hour they had gotten the first tent up and the second was almost complete. As Flandre watched them she couldn't help but to think about ants. And not in a condescending way. They were doing this, over and over, from day to day with their only goal being survival. To carry on to the next day. For what else options they had? Flandre was thinking about what Stephen had told her. About the paradise. Could something like that really exist? After what she had seen so far it seemed unlikely. The world didn't seem kind enough to allow that hope to bear fruits. But then again, how much different were her own ambitions. Only thing she had clinged to was the hope that she could put an end to all of this. Was she too on a useless journey, clinging to something that couldn't even be achieved. On her way to her own paradise? Honestly, she couldn't tell.

Now when she sat there. On the side of a hill made of nothing but junk and rubble, the dust particles the shattered realities had left to their wake she couldn't help but to realize how utterly alone she was. She had always considered those who she had been forced to cooperate with, Yukari, Yuugi and the others to just hinder her from reaching their goals but it was now when she realized that the only thing she wished for was someone to guide her. She was, in the whole definiton of the word, lost.

She was suddenly waken from her thoughts by a voice. A voice she hadn't heard before. Flandre lifted her gaze from the ground to look around herself and after a quick glance she found the young girl standing before her looking quizzical. Both of them just stared at each other for a moment before the girl opened her mouth.

"Hellooo? I asked do you want to eat something. We're having dinner soon," The girl said while staring at Flandre.

"Ah... Oh. Uhhh, thanks but I'm not hungry," Flandre said, smiled a little at the girl and lowered her gaze back to the ground.

"Are you sure? You haven't eaten during our whole walk today. Are you feeling okay?" The girl asked and walked closer to Flandre with childishly worried look on her face.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just... a little confused, that's all," Flandre responded and glanced at the girl who was now standing beside her. She watched her sat down and stare at the camp of the family where they could see Stephen and Enrich tending to a small camp fire they had manage to light up. Stephen's wife and son were apparently in one of the tents preparing the food for the cooking.

"What are you confused about?" The girl said and looked at Flandre.

"I... *sigh It's just that everything around me makes no sense what so ever," Flandre said with frustrated tone and look on her face while rubbing her forehead.

"It's okay. Losing one's family and then finding yourself here in the middle of the wastelands must be difficult to accept. If you want you can call my parents your mom and dad as well," The girl said and smiled gently.

"Thanks but I think I'll pass. To be honest I haven't seen my real parents in a long, long time. I've become used to it," Flandre said and shook her head a little while smiling a little in amusement. The way girl was concerned for her made her a little happier.

"What was your name again? I don't remember," The girl spoke again while adjusting her posture so that she was facing more towards Flandre.

"My name is Flandre. How about yours?" Flandre asked while looking at the girl.

"Eve, my name is Eve," Eve replied and grinned a little. Flandre smiled in responce and glanced back at their camp site.

"Those things on your back, they're pretty," Eve then suddenly said while Flandre was looking away. She then looked back at Eve who was apparently fixated on Flandre's wings.

"Thanks," Flandre said and smiled gently. Eve then got onto her knees while moving a little closer to Flandre's wings. Flandre winced a little at this.

"Can I touch them?" Eve then asked in a responce to Flandre's initial reaction of backing away slightly. Flandre looked at Eve for a second before sighing and giving her a slight nod.

"Okay. Just, be careful with them," Flandre said and looked down from Eve. Eve nodded gleefully and approached Flandre's left wing. A light blue crystal hung near the tip of the wing. Eve reached over and poked it a little. Flandre made shoft grunt and turned her face away. The dangling crystal swung slightly. Eve then leaned closer and caressed it gently. The crystal started emitting a sligth shimmer as Eve touched it. She then touched another crystal, this one being yellow in colour. As she touched it Flandre let out a faint sigh. Eve glanced at her but Flandre didn't turn her face towards her. As she poked the crystal a bit harder it too started emitting a slight shimmer. Eve then backed away with a little amazed look on her face.

"Those things are awesome! What are they?" Eve then asked enthusiastically. Flandre then finally turned back toward Eve and she could clearly see that Flandre looker like she had been crying.

"I- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...," Eve started but Flandre just lifted her arm and siped the few tears away from her cheeks and grinned a little.

"It's okay, it's just those crystals, they're quite sensitive," Flandre said and looked at Eve. Eve looked at her all confused.

"What do you mean? What are they? And why do you carry them around?" Eve asked with puzzled tone and look on her face. Flandre then stood up and turned around so that Eve could see her back properly. Eve stood up too to take a better look and when she did she realized that the metal rods to which the crystals were attached to went to Flandre's back and under her skin.

"What!? These things are going into your back," Eve exclaimed. Flandre then turned around again and grinned slightly. She then flapped her wings once which made the crystals jingle a little. Eve looked at them amazed.

"They are part of my body. These are my wings," Flandre said and moved her wings a bit more. Eve looked at them curious.

"Wings? How can you fly with those?" She asked with amazed and confused tone while circling around Flandre in utter amazement.

"I don't need my wings to fly. They're just there to hold those crystals," Flandre responded and shrugged gently.

"What those crystals then are? They're so cool," Eve asked after she had made a full circle around Flandre.

"They are... uhh, my emotions. In crystallized form," Flandre said and scratched her hair. Eve looked at her at first without saying a word. At first it looked like she was going to start laughing but then her expression turned into serious. She sat down and looked at Flandre.

"I understand that all this is hard for you to cope with but-," Eve started with much more serious toned and look on her face but Flandre wasn't having none of it.

"You don't believe me?" Flandre then asked with disappointed, almost sad tone while looking at Eve. Eve looked back at Flandre for a second before Flandre turned away and started walking towards the top of the hill away from the camp.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...," Eve the yelled after Flandre and stood up hastily but Flandre just turned around and ushered her to follow her.

"Come, I want to show you something," Flandre said and continued her walk towads the top of the hill. Eve however was hesitant.

"We aren't supposed to go far from the camp. Dad can get mad," Eve insisted with timid tone and look on her face.

"This will only take a minute," Flandre said and continued to head towards the top of the hill. Eve then quickly glanced behind herself towards the camp and then back at Flandre. She let out a silent whimper and then ran after Flandre.

"What do you want to show me?" Eve asked after she caught up with Flandre. The hill of rubble was quite hard to run up. Flandre glanced at Eve and grinned.

"I'm going to show you that I'm not crazy. I'm going to show you what I really am," Flandre uttered with enthused spark in her eye. Eve looked at Flandre with clearly nervous and worried look on her face but followed her nonetheless. It took them just a few seconds to reach the top of the hill and descend a little bit to the other side so that they were out of sight. Flandre wanted to be really cautious. She didn't want to alert the rest of the family. Once Flandre was sure they wouldn't be seen she stopped and turned to face Eve. There was a grin on Flandre's face.

"Now then, you doubted that I can fly?" Flandre asked flamboyantly while holding her arms on her vaist.

"Wait, you don't need to show off. We accept your greaving and you just as you are. You don't have to make anything up," Eve said while seemingly trying to get Flandre to just come back to the camp with her.

"That's just the answer I expected. You don't believe me," Flandre said, folded her arms akimbo and shook her head while grinning a little. She then looked at Eve, her grin widening. She let her arms fall to her sides as she stood there. Then, suddenly, Flandre bent her knees like one would do just before a jump and lept into the air. Eve looked at her but when she expected to Flandre to fall back into the ground Flandre just rose higher. When Flandre finally stopped rising her toes were higher than the top of Eve's head. Eve's jaw dropped.

"Well do you now!?" Flandre exclaimed flamboyantly while stretching her arms to her sides and laughing a little. Eve looked at her in awe. Flandre then dashed into motion, making few circles around Eve while giggling the whole time. She then flew back to where she had started. She decided to land but she decided to make even that a little flashier now when she had audience. Flandre let herself fall to the ground and upon touching the ground a gust of flames shot up from where she landed creating an impressive flaming circle around her. Then in one swift motion she summoned her Lävatein from that fire and let the rest die down so she could see Eve's reaction. When the fires died down to just embers and smoke she could finally see Eve's face. And it was nearly exactly how she had thought it might look. Utter astonishment. She was basically just standing there with her mouth open, staring at Flandre, not believing what she had just seen.

"Well, do you?" Flandre asked playfully and shrugged her shoulders while grinning. Eve took a few steps toward Flandre with still that astonished look on her face.

"Oh my god, that was AWESOME! How did you do that?" Eve the almost squeeled when she finally got over the initial shock. Flandre just shook her head. She then lifted her Lävatein and in as spectacular burst of fire as it had appeared, it also vanished. Few embers were left dancing into the air as Flandre just snapped her fingers and pointed playfully at Eve while winking.

"Magic," Flandre simply uttered and chuckled a bit.

"Whoa! You have to teach me to do that as well! I want to fly too! We could reach paradise in a jiffy," Eve enthused as she started to almost jump around Flandre who was taken back a little by Eve's enthusiasm.

"Whoah, whoah, slow down there a little. I'm sorry but I can't teach you," Flandre said and tried to calm Eve down who suddenly looked awfully annoyed when she finally stopped.

"Why not? If you can fly then I want to fly too," Eve said with clearly irritated tone and look on her face.

Just calm down. It's not that I don't want to or that I'm selfish, it is just that I don't know how to teach a human," Flandre said with apologetic look on her face.

"What do you mean 'human'? You're human yourself," Eve retorted with still very visibly annoyed about Flandre's refusal to teach her.

"Well... the matter is that I'm not human," Flandre said while scratching her heair and looking all around quite awkward about the situation.

"What are you then," Eve asked with her amrs akimbo while tapping the ground with her foot impatiently.

"I'm a vampire," Flandre said and sighed a little expecting a negative reaction from Eve but as she looked at her the only thing she received was a slightly confused tilt of her head as she continued tapping the ground.

"Vampire? What's that?" Eve asked. Flandre was taken back by this. She had been absolutely certain that Eve would at very least look a little scared, maybe even run away but there she stood like she had never even heard of vampires.

"A vampire? Don't you know what a vampire is?" Flandre asked with confused tone and look on her face.

"Na-ah. Never heard," Eve responded and shook her head while retaining her little impatient looking stance.

"Well... How should I then explain this," Flandre muttered while scratching the back of her neck. She had never tried to explain what she is to someone who didn't know because she assumed everyone knew. She hadn't even thought of the possibility that people wouldn't know about vampires, let alone think they were human.

"Well we vampires look like humans but there are certain differences between ourselves. For an example all vampires have wings even if they aren't necessary for flying," Flandre started after a moment of pondering.

"We are also stronger and faster than humans by default," Flandre continued with thoughtful look on her face.

"Are you trying to say that you're somehow better than me?" Eve suddenly asked and looked visibly irritated.

"No, no, I didn't say that. There are of course downsides for us as well. For an example we can't touch flowing water because it hurts us. It burns like we were being boiled. We also can't go out into the sun because that would vaporize us," Flandre responded quickly to try to ease Eve's annoyance. It seemed to work because a thoughtful look grew onto Eve's face.

"Sun... Father usually tells stories about this 'sun' but I've never seen it myself. If it hurts you, is it like... bad?" Eve asked and looked much more confused all of a sudden.

"What? No... at least not for you anyway. Uhhh... Oh, you see that black sphere in the sky?" Flandre suddenly asked and pointed at the ominous black orb in the sky still looming above them in the same position as before.

"Yeah, what about it?" Eve asked after looking at it for a moment.

"Well sun is something like that, except that it is yellow and really, really, really bright and warm," Flandre explained with sparkling eyes.

"Whoah. But if sun is so awesome, then how come it is bad for you?" Eve then asked with a little astonishment in her tone. This question made the look on Flandre's face change. The look she made was as if she had been denied a wish.

"That's... *sigh I think that's because we vampires aren't exactly friendly creatures. Most of us are actually quite evil. I think it is ultimately a punishment for us, to not be able to thread in the light like normal creatures can," Flandre uttered and looked all of a sudden much more depressed again. Eve looked confused.

"What do you mean evil? You don't seem evil to me," Eve said while eyeing Flandre as if she was examining her.

"It's not really wether we want or not. It is, quite literally, in our blood to be that way," Flandre said and sat down slowly. Eve looked at her still looking as confused as before. Flandre then lifted her gaze and looked at Eve straight into her eyes. She then grabbed her upper lip and pulled it upwards so that Eve could see her fangs.

"You see my teeth?" Flandre mumbled while still holding up her lip so Eve could take as good of a look as she wanted. Eve nodded slowly while staring into Flandre's mouth.

"These teeth, they're used to bite into human flesh and allow us to drink their blood. The red colour of our eyes, that's an eternal reminder of that. That's the price we have to pay for our power. That's our curse," Flandre explained and let go of her lip while looking at Eve who suddenly looked as shocked as if she had just seen a ghost.

"You... Are you going to hurt us? Are you going to drink my blood?" Eve managed to stutter while backing away slowly. Flandre had assumed that this would happen.

"No, I don't mean any harm to you," Flandre responded quickly and stood up from the ground to try and calm Eve down but she just seemed more scared now when Flandre stood upright.

"I'm not trying to drink your blood, trust me. I wouldn't do that. I don't want to. You were kind to me and I don't want to hurt you," Flandre said quickly and extended her arm towards Eve. Her words managed to calm Eve down so that she wouldn't at leats run away but she still looked visibly shaken. Flandre then let out a sigh and continued, "I wont probably even be with you and your family for far longer."

"Why is that?" Eve asked rather sheepishly while fiddling with her fingers.

"Well... you could say that I'm after my own paradise," Flandre simply responded and shook her head slightly. She then looked at Eve straight into her eyes and tried to look as non threatening as she could.

"Could you please keep this a secret. I don't want to scare anyone else," Flandre said as calmly as a she could. Eve looked at Flandre for an awkwardly long moment until she finally nodded without saying a word. Flandre let out a slight but releived sigh.

"Thanks. Let's head back to the camp before they start to worry where we are," Flandre uttered and it seemed Eve had waited for her to say this because as soon as these words left Flandre's mouth Eve perked up, turned on her heels and started heading back towards the camp away from Flandre. Flandre just sighed again and started following. It seemed that ther was no point in trying to befriend her anymore. She had ruined her chances.

When they returned to the camp it seemed that Eve's parents had just noticed their absence and seemed rather relieved to see them returning then. Eve's mother was quick to ask where they had been and to Flandre's comfort she said that they had just been talking. Eve's mother glanced at Flandre who then gave her a slight nod to confirm Eve's story. Luckily Eve's mother didn't suspect anything and Flandre's cover wasn't blown. Eve's parents had just finished preparing the dinner and invited Eve and Flandre to eat. Flandre purposefully sat a little bit away from Eve. She knew that she didn't want to provoke her anymore. Flandre wasn't even feeling hungry but she still took what she was offered. When Flandre looked at the small plate she was handed it took all her effort not to cringe. On the plate there was some canned beans and dried meat. As someone who had grown custom to eating only refined meals and pastries something like this was more than just a shock. During the dinner Flandre stole quick glances at everyone. The family seemed to be enjoying their less than modest meal. Flandre finally swallowed her pride and started eating as well. She was taken by surprise by the dried meat that actually didn't taste too bad but the beans were the opposite. In the end she had to result to only eating the meat because she felt like she would vomit if she tried to eat them. Stephen looked at her confused but Flandre just explained to him that she just wasn't able to keep herself from throwing up if she ate them. Stephen sighed at this and split Flandre's share of the beans with the rest of his family. Flandre then put her dishes away for the family's mother to clean and was about to head into one of the tents where she was supposed to sleep when she happened to glance at Eve. She looked rather pale and hadn't eaten too much. She looked almost catatonic as she just sat there and stared at her plate. Flandre felt bad for her. She hadn't meant to scare her. She could only let out a silent sigh as she walked past her and into one of the tents where she was supposed to sleep.

She was given a place from the tent where Stephen and Enrich slept. Stephen's wife, Eve and her brother slept in the other tent. As Flandre crawled into the tent she saw a small matress layed down for her and a rather dirty looking blanket. She let out yet another sigh after seeing where she had to sleep. Well it was not like she had any choice. Stephen's and Enrich's matresses and blankets didn't look any better. Flandre crawled to her matress and layed down onto it. She felt tired. She couldn't remember the last time she had had a proper sleep.

"I wonder what Marisa is doing right now. I hope she's well," Flandre thought to herself as she rolled to her side and pulled the blanket over her.

"I hope everyone is well," She continued by muttering quietly as she closed her eyes. She was worried for everyone else but what she was even more worried about was she herself. She still had no idea where to head and what to do. By her knowledge she was just darting around aimlessly hoping to find a lead or a clue on where to head. She was scared that she would let the other's down. But eventually her tiredness overpowered her worries and she was carried into a deep sleep.

Flandre's sleep, even if deep was still rather restless. Her mind was constantly bothered by nightmares and she kept rolling around on her matress. Stephen and Enrich were lucky that Flandre's wings didn't hit them as she rolled around and murmured in her sleep while suffering from a nightmare. Flandre then finally shot up from her matress, pushing the blanket away from herself. She had to sat there for a moment just to calm her breathing. Flandre looked around herself and sighed from releaf when she remembered where she actually was. She had had a nightmare about her confrontation with me. Or more like what I had done to her. Flandre had to sit there and just breath to calm her nerves to the point where she could lay down again. She then brought her palm to her forehead and swiped it. She had been sweating profusely. Her mouth was dry and her hand was quivering a little.

Flandre sighed. Just what she wouldn't give just to be at peace for just a moment. Of course there was nothing she could give to achieve this and she knew it all too well. The only thing she could do was to lay down again and try to get some sleep. Flandre laid back onto her back again and looked at the light brown tent canvas above her. It was silent. No one outside, nor inside the tent was making any noise except Stephen who was snoring a little. Flandre then rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. Then she waited. And waited. She rolled onto her other side and just tried to fall asleep again but sleep just wouldn't come. Flandre let out a faint groan and sat up again. The matress she was laying on was damp and she was sweating even more. She then tried to swallow to do something to her dry mouth but it didn't help. It was at that moment when she started to realize what was going on.

"Oh no, not now," Flandre could only think to herself as she tried to sink her head into her knees. This was the worst possible moment to grow thirsty. And Flandre very well knew what her thirst craved. If only it could be quenched with water. She knew that there was only one thing that could ease her craving. Blood. She needed to drink. There was no going around it. For to deny the thirst was to go mad, again in Flandre's case. Flandre then lifted her head from her knees and looked around her sheepishly.

"Is this how untrustworthy I am? I give a promise and I can't keep it even through a night?" Flandre thought to herself when she remembered that she had promised that she wouldn't hurt anyone in Eve's family. She looked at Stephen. She knew right away that she couldn't dip her teeth into him. Not after he had taken her with his family without a question. Flandre then looked to her right and at Enrich who was laying on his side facing away from Flandre.

"What choice do I have? It's either drink or starve. And to not drink now would endanger my promise to Marisa. No, I have to prioritize. This man, I don't even know him. And it wont even kill him to quench my thirst. I don't have to tell Eve. No one has to know," Flandre thought to herself and let out a slight groan as she moved on her matress to all fours and crawled silently towards Enrich. Flandre was sure he was asleep. He was breathing too easy to be awake. When she was at arms reach from him Flandre gently reached for Enrich's neck and moved his hair as carefully as she could away from his neck. She could feel her mouth watering immediately when she saw the veins on Enrich's neck. A drop of sweat rolled down Flandre's forehead as she crept closer. She would have to do this quickly and silently. She couldn't afford to mess up. She positioned herself so that she could bite him easily and so that her arms were ready to grab his head. She didn't like it but this was necessary. She wouldn't have had a problem with this if it weren't for her promise to Eve. She hated to betray someone's trust. She then leaned forsward and opened her mouth.

"I'm terribly sorry," Flandre thought to herself and then in one swift motion leaned all the way down and sank her teeth into Enrich. Enrich let out a gasp and his eyes shot wide open when Flandre did this but this was why Flandre was ready to grab Enrich's head. She did this immediately and used a simple spell to sedate Enrich's mind so that he wouldn't yell or try to fight back. Flandre could immediately feel her victim's muscles ease and few seconds later she could feel how he fell asleep again. This was when she started to drink. No matter how many time she did this it never got old. The feel of warm blood gushing into her mouth and the metallic taste it brought with it. To her it was like a drug. Drug that she wasn't just addicted to, but a drug that was necessary to her. After the initial wave of pleasure she got she started to steal glances to her left to make sure Stephen didn't wake up at a wrong moment. All the negative emotions and thoughts she had just had vanished as her thirst was quenched. She didn't even feel bad about this anymore. The blood made sure she felt this way.

This went on for a good minute until Flandre finally let go of Enrich and removed her teeth from his neck. Flandre then swiped the corners of her mouth and licked her fingers. In her mind she hadn't broken anyone's trust anymore. This was just a necessary procedure. To make sure she wouldn't have to actually hurt anyone and that she would have strength to continue. That's right. This was all just for greater good. It's not like Enrich would suffer permanently from this. And even if he did, what harm would it do. It's not like he was an original part of Eve's family. If she just knew Flandre's needs, she would forgive her right away. These were Flandre's thoughts as she crawled back onto her matress with blissful grin on her face. She felt like she was going to get sweet dreams until she woke up again.

"Alright everyone, let's pack up and get going again," Were the words that woke Flandre up. She let out a sluggish yawn and stretched her joints like a cat that had just been woken from its nap. She didn't remember how long it had been since she had had sleep so restful. Blissfully, she slowly sat up on her matress to further stretch her arms when she happened to lay her eyes onto Enrich who still seemed to be asleep. It was then when the memories of the last night's events flooded back into Flandre's mind reminding of what she had done. She was taken back by this for a second but soon simply shook it off. She knew no one could have seen her do anything. Stephen had been asleep and she had sedated Enrich in the process. She was in the clear. With this Flandre stood up and crawled out of the tent where she was creeted by an awfully familiar looking landscape of rubble, black sky, red fog and that eerie black glowing sphere just wouldn't stop hanging on its place above the horizon.

"Just what are you...?" Flandre muttered to herself before looking back at their tents. The other, where Eve had slept had been started to be taken down already by her brother and everyone seemed to be up and awake already. Everyone excpet Enrich.

"Hey, Enrich. Would you mind getting up already, we have to get going soon," Stephen yelled at the tent. When he couldn't hear a response he seemingly shrugged his shoulders and crawled back into the tent to presumably wake his friend. But it was when he came out did Flandre start to worry. As he crawled back out he was dragging seemingly unresponsive Enrich behind himself and was signing his wife and Eve's brother to come quickly. Flandre approached the scene too but only just enough to hear what they were talking about.

"There's something wrong with him. I think he might be sick," Stephen called out to his wife who came running to see what was wrong.

"Oh no, let me take a look," his wife exclaimed as she knelt next to Enrich.

"He's really pale, sweating profusely and was only groaning when I tried to wake him up," Stephen explained as he let his wife to take a better look.

"Son, take down the tent for us, would you," Stephen then said to his son who simply nodded and started packing the now empty tent. As Flandre was watching the situation unfold she could feel a hint of guilt start creeping up her spine as she looked at Stephen, his wife and Enrich. She knew perfectly well what was causing this. She had gone over board with her feeding and Enrich was suffering from severe blood loss. The bite marks she had left on Enrich's body were healed already, that was the power of the enzymes in vampire's saliva but she couldn't help but feel that Eve was stealing glances at her. Every time she tried to catch her in the act she would only appear looking all worried at Enrich but this didn't reassure Flandre even the slightest. The looks she stole at Flandre were too much to just overlook. Flandre was certain that Eve had a hunch on what had happened. This made Flandre extremely nervous.

"I don't know what's wrong with him. He seems very weak. Do you think we should just stay here and wait till he gets better?" Stephen's wife asked after examining Enrich.

"We can't stay. We have to get a move on. Every moment we spend sitting idly is a moment wasted. The paradise isn't going to come to us by itself," Stephen responded with determination in his tone. While pacing back and forth impatiently.

"You're taking it way too seriously. One day of rest doesn't take the paradise further away from us either. Is it too much to ask to just let your friend rest for a while?" His wife insisted which made Stephen's attention to fall back onto her.

"And what if it does? We don't know how the world functions. We don't know if, together with new people appearing, miles of new land will also appear between us and out goal. We have to leave now," Stephen retorted, now with much more urgent tone and look on his face. His wife was about to respond with something but was cut off by Enrich finally lifting his arm and speaking weakly, "Yeah, he's right. Let's get going. I think I can walk if I just get some help."

Stephen's wife looked at weak looking Enrich for a moment and then at Stephen. She then sighed deeply and stood up. And without saying a word she went to help her son to pack up the tent while Stephen started helping Enrich to stand up. There was clear tension in the air as they started to prepare for what Flandre assumed to be a really painstaking walk. Stephen's wife then signed Flandre to come over. Enrich's condition had forced them to split his carryings between the others and that forced Flandre to carry some too. She was given a backpack that was filled with some supplies. The weight of the backpack wasn't a problem for her. She could have carried it for ages but what proved to be troublesome was how the backpack pressed against Flandre's wings. Stephen's wife tried to suggest removing them by saying, "You should take those silly things off. You'll want to preserve your strength." She tried to grab Flandre's other wing but this was only met by a sudden jump and a startled look from Flandre. Stephen's wife simply rolled her eyes and let Flandre be, at least for now. Once they had everything packed up they headed out again. Stephen and Enrich were at the front of their little pack so that they wouldn't fall back by accident and the others followed them. Well Eve was at front too trying to help Enrich as much as she could. It wasn't much but she seemed to be really concerned for this old man. Flandre on the other hand stayed at the back of the group. Not out of guilt, no. She in fact didn't feel almost any at this point anymore. She just wanted to make sure that Eve would be in her line of vision at all times. The way she was acting. She must have somehow guessed that Flandre was to blame for their struggles. She just didn't know how she could know that. Of course, she had told her of what she really was but even so there still was no concrete evidence of what she had done. No bruises or any marks left on Enrich's body. She should be on the clear. Yet somehow Eve knew that she was to blame. Flandre even caught Eve glancing back at her in couple occasions further solidifying her doubts about her. She would need to be cautious.

But just as everyone had predicted their march was painstakingly slow now that Enrich was only barely able to stand up. Ultimately even Stephen had to admit that maybe getting going again now wasn't the best idea but even so he decided that they would push on. With the pace they got they had already walked for nearly seven hours and only covered about 3 kilometers. Everyone knew that Enrich wouldn't get much further anymore and frankly Flandre was getting bored to the scenery slowly rolling by. That said she wasn't expecting that to change when they reached a crest of yet another small hill. But at this Flandre's assumptions were proven wrong. All of them had to stop upon reaching the top of the hill and just take in what they were seeing. There was a rather huge heap of clean metal right in front of them. It was as noticeable as a sore thumb. At first it would have looked like a pile of junk, but after looking at it for another second anyone could tell that this one wasn't part of the landscape. It was irregular and clearly hadn't formed naturally. If anything in this world was natural to begin with. It looked like it was man-made. And not just in a way every piece of junk that was part of the landscape was. This looked much more like those buildings Flandre had seen but also much more complicated and newly made.

Flandre was about to take a step closer and walk to this thing to see what it was but was quickly stopped by Stephen who stretched his hand in front of Flandre signing her to stop. She looked at Stephen confused but soon realised that he had a concerned look on his face. Something was up and Flandre didn't know what it was.

"What's up?" Flandre finally asked while looking at Stephen and then at everyone else who all looked really concerned all of a sudden.

"Do you think it's still alive?" Stephen's son then finally asked breaking the silence that had been irritating Flandre for a good while now.

"I don't know. It doesn't seem to be moving. I've never seen a live one lay down before, so maybe it is dead," Stephen responded.

"Should we check it out? If it is dead, it could give us a really good shelter to use as a resting place," Stephen's son continued and looked at his dad who seemed to be thinking of his proposal. Flandre was getting annoyed. She wanted to know what was going on.

"Yeah, that's true, let's check it out but let's be careful. We want to be ready to run if it isn't dead," Stephen said and they started slowly descending the hill and itch closer to this thing laying on the fields of junk.

"What is that thing?" Flandre asked but she received only shushes as they seemingly sneaked towards this heap of junk metal. Stephen's mother, Eve and Enrich were staying a little behind, apparently ready to take off running if something were to go wrong. Flandre just had no idea what this something could be. Stephen and his son grew more and more agitated the closer they crept to this pile of junk and when they were only about ten meters away from it Stephen reached down, grabbed the first object he could get his hands onto and threw it at the pile. There was a bang as the piece of metal he had picked up hit the smooth surface of a piece of junk this pile was made of. Then they all stood there for a good moment. It was like they were waiting for something. It was at that point when Flandre had had enough.

"Alright, why in the world you all acting so afraid all of a sudden when we come across just slightly bigger pile of garbage than usual?" Flandre asked and started making her way towards the pile despite Stephen's efforts to stop him.

"Wait," Stephen tried to get Flandre to stop but Flandre had already made her way to the pile and was now climbing onto it. Once she had reached the top she turned around to look at the Stephen's family who was watching her from the bottom of the pile. She then stretched her arms to her sides like it would further prove her point.

"See?" Flandre insisted and even jumped once to prove that they all were just being silly. At that point Stephen finally let out a sigh of releaf and signed the rest of his family to come. He then also signed Flandre to come down. Flandre simply shrugged her shoulders not understanding what all the tension had been for but in the end decided to come down. Maybe Stephen would explain. As she climbed down she saw how Stephen's wife helped Enrich to the foot of the pile where there was a good place for him to finally sit down. As he did he let out a fair bit of groans and gasps. It seemed that the walk had taken its toll on Enrich who was now sitting down, sweating bullets and looking almost as pale as when they had woken up.

"Listen Stephen. I'm pretty sure I've reached my limit. This is a good and sheltered place to put up a camp. Let's stop here," Enrich managed to say between deep breaths while looking at the pile behind him that Flandre was just climbing down.

"Yeah, you're right. And sorry for making you go so far," Stephen responded and patted Enrich's shoulder to which Enrich just replied with a wave of his arm like it wasn't a big deal but everyone clearly saw that it was. When Flandre finally reached the ground level once again Stephen signed her to come over as he backed a little bit away from the rest of his family while they started to set their camp. Flandre made her way towards Stephen not knowing what he had to say but she hoped that he would have an explanation for the earlier.

"I'll have to ask you to never do that again. You don't know in what kind of a danger we all might have been," Stephen finally said once Flandre had caught up with him.

"Danger? What kind of a danger could that heap of rusting metal provide?" Flandre asked, still utterly confused by Stephen's reaction to that pile.

"That isn't just a pile of garbage. That's a corpse. A corpse of a really dangerous being," Stephen said and looked Flandre dead in her eyes. This made Flandre stop and look back at Stephen while waiting for him to continue. He now had Flandre's full attention.

"We call them titan walkers. They're absolutely enormous, there are alot of them yet there are no two that are similiar. They're all made of metal and are extremely dangerous," Stephen continued and looked back at the pile that apparently was a corpse of this beast Stephen was describing.

"Dangerous... How dangerous?" Flandre finally asked after taking a long and precise glance at the corpse around which the rest of the family was building their camp. And now that she thought about it, it truly seemed that the pile was made of a one larger part from which five legs seemed to protrude. Just next to the corpse there seemed to be a sixth leg but that one had appaerntly fallen off.

"I mean extremely dangerous. We see live ones every now and then and hope that we don't get onto its way. Usually we just try to hide. The titan walkers don't usually attack you on sight, although I've heard of that happening as well. But they will attack if you if you get too close. Your best bet is to try to stay out of its way if you ever see one. And if you can't stay out of its way... then pray that it ends you quick," Stephen continued his explanation and Flandre was listening to him intently. She didn't look afraid, more intrigued which seemed to confuse Stephen a little.

"H-how do they kill? And where do they come from?" Flandre asked while looking back at the corpse of this thing.

"They fire these... eh, I've heard they're called lazers but I may be wrong. I've never seen a man surviving from its blast. God... And for where they come from. Well, nobody knows for certain, but we do know that every time we see one, it seems that it is soming from the west," Stephen responded and pointed at a direction that Flandre presumed to be the west. Flandre gulped. For the first time ever she might have gotten a lead to where to go. These 'titan walkers' didn't seem normal at all. It could be that they were some how made by who ever is the culprit behind all of this. Flandre's gaze was then drawn back to the corpse of this behemoth together with Stephen's gaze when they heard his son yelling something at them. When they looked it seemed like he was waving his arms as well. It definitely seemed like he was trying to get their attention.

"Looks like they found something," Flandre simply uttered and was just about to start walking back towards the camp when Stephen grabbed her arm and looked her dead in the eyes.

"Promise me that you'll never act so reckless towards these things. I don't ever want to see anybody losing their life to these things ever again," Stephen said with such a serious look on his face that Flandre was taken back a little by this. There was a brief moment when Flandre just stared at Stephen's face and finally nodded slowly not knowing how else to respond. Stephen then sighed and let go of Flandre's arm. He then glanced at Flandre one more time, flashed a slight smile and started walking back towards their camping ground to see what it was that his son had found. Flandre followed soon after him.

Even when Flandre walked behind Stephen she already knew that that promise wouldn't be amongst the ones she intended to keep. She knew that it would be only a matter of time until she would confornt one, not out of necessity, but out of curiosity. She wanted to know what all that fuss was about. And she had to see if those metal monsters could lead her towards the culprit. It didn't seem far fetched. She just had no idea who could make these kinds of things. How ever she was positive that once she would head west she would find out eventually. Be it the culprit or not, it would still be a step towards the right direction. Direction of making sense of all this.

But first things first, now she would make sense of what Stephen's son had found. As they walked closer they could finally hear his voice clear enough.

"This one still has full energy core, and it is pretty odd as well," Stephen's son yelled and pointed at the corpse of this metal behemoth. Flandre and Stephen looked at each other. Stephen looked rather curious but the only thing Flandre felt was more confusion. She once again had no idea what people were talking about. Energy core? So when Stephen picked up his pace Flandre did the same to see what was so interesting all of a sudden.

Once they reached the metal corpse again Stephen's son signed them to follow. They circled around the beast and when they reached the other side Stephen's son pointed at a reasonable big torn hole on the side of the thing. Stephen and Flandre walked closer to the hole so they could see better what it contained. The insides of the metal creature were dark and cold but the drakness was still somewhat broken by a large cylinder within it that emitted a slight light blue glow.

"Well I be damned. A fully functional energy core," Stephen uttered in amazement. Flandre still didn't understand what was so incredible.

"I once came across a rather large wasteland settlement. They scavenged these energy cores from fallen titan walkers and used them to power their village. These things are so powerful that one could power the whole village for more than a year. Imagine what they would trade us if we managed to bring this to them," Stephen murmured in awe while squatting down and making his way into the broken shell of the dead beast.

"Too bad it is so big. It would take three men to just lift the thing," Stephen's son added to his father's comment. Flandre too approached the cylinderical, slightly glowing device that seemed to be the center of Stephen's and his son's attention. She extended her arm to reach and touch then thing but before she could Stephen grabbed her arm and gently pushed it back down.

"I wouldn't touch it. We don't know if it is unstable or not," Stephen said firmly before turning his focus back onto the energy core. Flandre backed away from it while holding her hand. Stephen was not kidding. When Flandre had reached to touch the core she had felt astonishing amounts of energy basically radiating from it. It was probably best if she didn't touch it. Who knows what could happen if she were to accidentally release all that energy? Flandre decided to stand back as Stephen continued to inspect the device.

"Yeah. It's a pity to leave this behind. But tell me, what was so odd about this? I mean, finding a deceased titan walker almost always guarantees a energy core as well," Stephen then asked and turned around to look at his son again. His son stood quietly and simply pointed his finger at the inside surface of the metal shell Stephen was standing on. Flandre followed his finger with her gaze and looked at where he was pointing. Flowers. Dozens upon dozens of flowers were growing around the energy core. It wouldn't have been strange at the first glance but two details made it extremely odd. One, the flowers were growing through the metal shell. And two, there was no soil for the flowers to grow from. They literally sprouted from the rubble below the corpse. Stephen shot up immediately upon seeing this. So suddenly in fact that he hit his head to the top of the shell.

"Owww, damn it," He exclaimed as he held his head and backed out from the shell. Once the pain subsided he took another look at the flowers around the energy core. It was absolutely bizarre. They all could just stood there silently and gawk at this sight before them.

"Father, what are these?" Stephen's son asked while looking at the flowers that clearly shouldn't have been there.

"I...," Stephen started but didn't get any further when Flandre interrupted him, "Flowers. Why are there flowers here?" Both Stephen and his son turned to look at Flandre.

"W- what are flowers?" Stephen the asked carefully after a brief silence. Flandre then turned to look at the two.

"Flowers are plants. They grow when their seeds fall to the soil and they receive enough water. They're fragile but beautiful plants. And they certainly don't grow from rubble like this let alone grow through metal shell of this thing," Flandre said with blank expression on her face. There was silence again. They all then looked back at the flowers that apparently refused to bow to common sense and grew in impossible enviroinment. But just to add more confusion to this mess these flowers were the first signs of natural life in the outside world Flandre had seen. And judging by the reaction of Stephen and his son, it was so for them too. Just when Flandre had thought that she might have had some answers to questions she had had, more made themselves apparent to her. For some reason it made Flandre feel uneasy to see these otherwise fragile plants grow out from metal and other junk. It just wasn't right.

After gawking at the flowers dumbfoundedly Stephen finally decided that maybe they should return to the rest of the family and help them to set up the rest of the camp. They had had enough of strange things for today. And considering everything Flandre had so far seen in the outside world, to call something strange was really saying something.

Back at the camp site the tents had already almost completed so Stephen and Flandre didn't have much they had to do. From there the evening preparations went pretty much the same as the last time. Flandre watched how Stephen managed to get a fire going and his wife started cooking food. This time how ever Eve was keeping her distance to Flandre. She didn't feel like this was a surprise though. And to be honest she preferred it that way. She much rather kept her eye on her than interracted with her. Even when she was invited to come to eat she kept a keen eye on Eve and how she carried food to Enrich and all around spent suspiciously much time with him. Flandre only grabbed some of the meat she was offered and then returned to her inital spot where she could see Eve and the rest of the camp easily. The slight solitude also gave her time to think about what she had learned. Those metal monsters Stephen had described seemed more and more peculiar in her mind. They just couldn't be a product of this world no matter how strange it was by default. The fact that they all came from the same direction proved this to her in her mind. Tonight she would finally leave Stephen and his family behind. She would head where these monstrosities come from in hopes of discovering something. Anything.

As the evening actities were done and the camp fire was extinguished everyone started to crawl into their tents. Enrich was still feeling really weak but he was starting to seem better. He could at least get into the tent and to his matress by himself. Eve, her brother and mother spent the night again in the other tent while Stephen, Enrich and Flandre slept in the other. Well Stephen and Enrich slept. Flandre could only roll on her matress in anticipation. As soon as she determined that everyone had fallen to deep enough sleep she would get up and sneak away. She thought that disappearing while everyone was asleep was a better option to leaving while everyone was awake.

It really didn't take long for Enrich to fall asleep. He was exhausted by the last day's walk so it was no surprise. Stephen on the other hand took a little longer but eventually even he started snoring. Flandre however didn't get a move on just yet. She waited until Stephen's snoring had eased up a little indicating that he had fallen to deeper sleep and wouldn't wake up so easily. Flandre just kept on laying there and stared at the light brown tent fabric, dimly lit by a lantern that was hanging from hook on the roof of the tent. Seconds couldn't flow past any slower as she listened to Stephen's snoring.

But eventually the time came when the snoring had died down and Flandre carefully lifted her head from the matress to look around the tent. Enrich was laying on her side facing away from Flandre just like the last night. Stephen was laying on her back and his snoring was barely audible. This was the moment Flandre had waited for. She slowly got up making sure she wouldn't disturb anything with her movements and started making her way out of the tent. She carefully walked over to Enrich and looked at him for a moment. There were no signs of bite mark on his neck which made Flandre feel reassured that she had been just paranoid and there was no way anyone had suspected her. And if they had, there wasn't any evidence. She then looked over to Stephen.

"I wish you well," Flandre thought to herself before taking a careful and silent step over Enrich and towards the entrance of the tent. She knelt down and crawled out. Once out she inhaled deeply, stood up and stretched her back. It always felt refreshing to do that, to stretch one's joints after laying for a long time. She then looked around herself. The tent next to the one she had crawled out from seemed as silent and peaceful as the other. It seemed that everyone even there were fast asleep. She then made her way a little bit further away from the tents to see a little better around herself. She still remembered what she had been told, to the ominous black sphere on the sky was always on the eastern side of the sky. So what she had to do was to head constantly away from it to head to the right direction.

"Convenient. I hated to look at that thing," Flandre thought to herself after first looking at the sphere and then to the direction she apparently needed to head. Vast stretches of plains opened up before her eyes. She had already decided that she wouldn't stop until she would reach... what ever she was after. Even she didn't really know what it was she was trying to find. But she was sure that by following those metal monsters she would eventually find something. She took the final glance at the corpse of that metal giant behind her and it was only then when she saw something she hadn't seen immediately upon leaving the tent. And maybe she shouldn't have seen it at all. Eve was sitting on top of the corpse of that thing looking straight at Flandre with wide eyed look on her face. Both of them were caught in a long stare off between themselves until Eve broke the silnece.

"What are you doing?" Eve asked with a little scared and quivering tone all this time not breaking an eye contact with Flandre.

"I'm leaving. What are you doing here, shouldn't you be sleeping?" Flandre responded carefully and with a doubtful look on her face.

"I couldn't sleep. I'm worried for Enrich's sake," Ever replied and stood up carefully.

"I see...," Flandre simply uttered leaving the two into awkward silence. Flandre looked silently how Eve started making her way down from the corpse of that walker. It was a really awkward moment. Flandre kept her eye on Eve who kept glancing at Flandre nervously.

"Well, you keep yourself safe. Where ever you may be headed," Eve simply uttered and was about to head to her tent but she suddenly felt something grabbing her arm. Thightly. She turned around and saw Flandre's hand grabbing her arm and when she turned around fully she saw Flandre's intense glare fixated on her eyes. She couldn't help herself when she let out a frightened yelp.

"You tell me right now how did you figure it out?" Flandre suddenly hissed. Eve was beyond terrified. Flandre had just stood couple dozen meters away from her but she had reached her and grabbed her arm in a blink of an eye.

"Wh- what? What do you mean? Let me go," Eve whimpered and tried to pry herself free but Flandre's grip was thight and firm. There was no way Eve would get herself free.

"Don't play stupid with me. You know what I mean," Flandre hissed back at her and somehow made her glare even more threatening as she leaned ever closer to Eve's face.

"I really don't know what you mean! Stop it, you're hurting me," Eve kept on whimpering as tears started welling into her eyes. Flandre looked at Eve's arm she was holding which was now starting to turn pale because of how tightly she squeezed it. She however didn't care she simply glared back at Eve. At this point Eve was starting to be on a verge of bursting out crying. It was then when Flandre finally let go of Eve's arm and basically tossed her to the ground. Eve then kicked herself a little bit away while holding her arm but Flandre approached her again.

"You knew right away that I had caused Enrich's condition. You knew I had drank his blood. How did you figure it out?" Flandre interrogated while looming over Eve whose tears soon switched to confusion.

"Wh- what? I didn't... Wh- you? You did it? But you promised-," Eve started but was soon cut short by clearly even more annoyed Flandre.

"Don't try to act all innocent. I saw you eyeing me the whole walk here from our last camp while you took care of Enrich," Flandre hissed back at her and it looked like she was about to hit her when Eve responded, "Of course I was glancing at you. You scared me! I was trying to just help Enrich because I care for him. How could you do that? You promised that you wouldn't hurt us!" It was then when Flandre snapped out of it. The rage was washed from her face and she backed away a good few meters. Now when she thought about it it made perfect sense. Of course Eve would be scared of her. In the end she revealed what she was to her. And then she realized that she was getting worked over nothing. What the hell did it even matter if Eve figured her out. Why in the world would it even be important to her? But now the damage was already done. She had hoped to leave Stephen and his family so that they wouldn't have to remember her with hate. Now, however, the trust she had gained was lost. The one thing she hoped to establish between her and Stephen's family.

"What the hell went into me?" Flandre thought to herself as she grasped her head with both of her hands and shook her head in regret. She then looked at Eve and tried to approach her.

"Eve, I'm terribly, terribly sor-," that was as far as she could get before Eve threw a tin can at her that she had picked up from the ground while yelling, "Stay away from me!" Flandre covered her face as the tin can hit her and bounced back into the ground. She then lowered her arms from her face. She looked at Eve with regret painted all over her face. She was about to try and apologize to her again but then she realized that Eve, while certainly staring at her direction, wasn't looking at her. The look on her face was the one of fear and she was breathing heavily but she clearly wasn't looking at Flandre. Flandre stopped for a moment. She stared at Eve in confusion until she realized that what ever Eve had stopped to stare so intensively, it was behind her. Flandre then glanced over her shoulder to see what it was. And when she did, her jaw dropped.

In the distance, maybe one or two kilomteres away from them, it was hard to tell, was this massive bipedal creature. No, massive was an understatement, it was humongous. Flandre turned around completely to face the thing as she stared at it in shock and awe.

"PA!" She then heard Eve scream behind her from the bottom of her lungs. She could hear her scramble to her feet and dash toward Stephen's and Enrich's tent. Flandre on the other hand was paralyzed to her place. She could only stare as the monstrosity, that was apparently made of metal, heading towards them in alarming pace. The movements it made were anything but natural. It seemed to stop for about a half second between each stope when both of its legs were firmly planted to the ground before taking another step. The steps it took however were enormous. Its legs were long and rather thin when compared to its upper body. The legs connected to a tthick object on top of them and on top of this part was a rather round looking large capsule with a horizontal line going around the capsule about in the middle. The line was emitting light blue glow. On the sides of this capsule were two stub, arm-like extensions but those arms didn't have hands and instead both had one large... thing. That Flandre could only describe as cannons. Although these were cannons the likes of which she had never seen before. Not that she had seen any except in books.

As the behemoth approached closer and closer Flandre could start to feel the earth shaking under each step it took. It was also at that point when Flandre heard scrambling from Stephen's and Enrich's tent.

"W-wha... What's going on?" was all that Stephen managed to spurt out before he locked his gaze to the silver glistening beast approaching their camp. It was now under a kilometer away from them and approaching ever closer.

"Oh, god no. EVERYONE GET UP," Stephen managed to shout after a few seconds of terrified silent staring at the approaching danger. Flandre then turned around to look at their camp that was starting to fall into chaos rapidly. Flandre watched as Stephen basically ripped the tent away just to get Enrich out faster as he had not yet fully recovered. Flandre then looked at the other tent from which she could see Eve's brother dashing out in hasty confusion to see what was going on and he was soon followed by his mother who also looked rather distressed and confused. Flandre then turned back to look at the iron moster that had now stopped couple hundred meters away from them. It assumed a wider stance with its legs and seemingly turned its attention toward the corpse of the other walker next to which Stephen had made their family set up camp. The metal creature seemed to be pondering the situation it had found. If it even had thoughts. Flandre couldn't discern any natural emotions from it as it kept its body turned toward the corpse of what Flandre assumed to be one of its kind. Then in one agonisingly slow movement which was still too fast for comfort it turned its body towards the camp and the family.

"LEAVE IT, JUST RUN," Flandre could hear Stephen yelling behind her as she turned around and saw how Stephen pushed his son and wife into running. They had tried to collect their things but it was obvious that they didn't have time for that. Once they started running after Eve who had basically taken off immediately after alerting her dad, Stephen turned his attention to Enrich who was struggling to get up. There was no way they would get away in time. Any of them. Flandre then turned back towards the metallic monster. She had been frozen on her place thus far but as the beast let out a metallic screech Flandre was forced to hold her ears and back away couple steps as the beast directed its 'cannons' towards them. Flandre looked up again after regaining her balance only to see the tips of these 'cannons' starting to glow blue. Flandre's reaction however wasn't due to the sight she beheld, but rather due to the prickling on her skin caused by the massive amounts of energy the metal beast was gather. As a instinctual reaction to this Flandre summoned her Lävatein, grabbed it from the air, slammed her right foot on the ground in front of her taking a defensive stance and summoning barrier of flame gushing from the ground. She was just in time because it was at that moment when the giant released the energy it gathered in two massive beams directed toward them. This attack was stronger than Flandre had anticipated and upon coming to contact with her barrier the attack was stopped but the barrier was utterly demolished by the explosion that followed. The force of this explosion shook the ground so violently that it even made the behemoth stumble a little let alone Stephen and his family who were knocked down by the tremors and the shockwave that followed. This explosion also created huge amounts of smoke and lifted dust from the ground making it impossible to see through it. This made it so that the walker couldn't find its targets and there fore just stood idly and scanned the scene before it after it had gained its balance. Stephen's family was utterly stunned by the realization that they were still alive as they gathered themselves from the ground. Upon turning around and looking at the destruction they couldn't help but to wonder what had happened because no one had paid any attention to Flandre in their frenzy to get away. They also couldn't see the walker on the other side of the cloud of smoke so they didn't realize that they were still in grave danger. But that also went the same way the other way around. The walker couldn't see the family either. As the silence fell again and each side was locked in staring at the cloud of smoke it started to fade slowly, finally revealing the still standing frame of the walker to Stephen and his family. But before they could even scream in terror they heard the distinctive sound of tearing metal and saw something dashing out from the corpse of the other walker next to which they had set up their camp. It was Flandre and she was carrying the now detached energy core on her shoulders.

In the cover of the smoke she had made a run for the walker's corpse next to her, grabbed the energy core and blasted her way through the metal shell of that corpse. This finally alerted the live walker that had been waiting to regain its visual to its targets. The walker started taking steps closer as Flandre landed few hundred meters before it near where she had initially deflected the first two shots it had fired. She then dropped the energy core from her shoulders and planted it firmly to the ground. She once again took out her Lävatein and plunged it into the energy core making it sink deep. It was then when the live walker had stopped again and was assuming a firing position yet again. Flandre then turned her attention away from the energy core and at the walker, keeping her left hand gripping the hilt of the Lävatein while stretching her right hand towards the walker. The walker's cannons started to glow blue again but so did Flandre as she channeled all the energy within the energy core into herself. The walker must have had no idea what hit it because upon emptying the energy core into herself Flandre released all the energy she had absorbed and maybe a little extra as well in one massive beam that not only split the walker in half but did so with ease and persisted couple seconds even after the main pod of the walker blew up and the legs and the cannons fell to the ground.

The ground shook once more as the parts of the now dead walker hit the ground with a crash once again lifting a small dust cloud in the air. Flandre let her hand fall down as she was done firing the beam. Without uttering a word or showing any signs of exhaustion she pulled her Lävatein free, let it go out in flames and covered her face as the dust cloud hit her. That was the first time in a long while she had felt a gust of air hit her face. Even if it wasn't a real wind it sure felt like it. Flandre inhaled deeply to the dusty air, letting herself cough a little. She had enjoyed that. Not only the slight breeze but that little skirmish she had with the walker. Truly letting herself go was something she hadn't done in a long while. She even let out a slight chuckle as she opened her eyes again and looked at the fruits of her work. The parts of the walker that had survived had been blackened and there were visible scorch marks everywhere. This was her way of expressing herself. This was her art. She then started turning around, half expecting shocked and amazed looks, half expecting praise. As she turned around she gave the widest grin she could muster. But when she finally laid her eyes onto Stephen and her family, she didn't find praise nor did she find expressions of awe. The only things she saw were terrified expressions on people huddled together, fearing death that had not come. The grin faded from Flandre's face as she looked at Stephen who was holding his wife, his sone and daughter in his arms visibly shaking and mumbling something to himslef with shut eyes. His wife was doing the same. His son and Eve however were staring at Flandre wide-eyed and paralyzed by shock. Enrich was sitting a little closer to Flandre as he hadn't gotten as far away due to his weakness. He too was looking at Flandre wide eyed but he wasn't as paralyzed as the kids were and instead he was breathing heavily and pushing himself away from Flandre slowly.

"H- hey, you don't have to be afraid anymore, the beast is dead, the danger is over," Flandre then uttered with audible confusion in her tone. But the only response she got was silence. Stephen and the rest didn't react at all to Flandre's words.

"Stephen, please, open your eyes. Look, it's dea-," Was all Flandre could get out while taking careful steps toward Stephen and his family when an ear-piercing bang rang out it the air. Flandre flinched and stopped on her tracks as she felt something hitting her hard to her stomach. She looked at the family. None of them had moved but they all were now looking wide-eyed at Enrich who had pulled out a pistol and was pointing the smoking barrel at Flandre. Flandre looked at enrich for a moment and the down at her stomach. There was a hole in her clothes now and a small circle shaped bloodstain on them. Flandre reached into the hole with her fingers and dag out a small, now mangled piece of metal. Flandre had never seen a bullet let alone a gun so she was rather confused. The bullet wasn't silver so it hadn't hurt her too bad but it had been enough to pierce her skin and make her bleed. Flandre looked at the piece of metal and the blood that was staining it. She then looked at the hole in her clothes. She touched the spot the bullet had hit her and then finally lifted her gaze up again and at Enrich who was still pointing a gun at her. But when she looked up Stephen and his family no longer saw confusion on Flandre face. Now there was only rage. They all flinched as Flandre dropped the bullet to the ground. As it made a slight clinking sound Flandre took a one step closer. Enrich then cocked his gun again which drew Flandre's attention to him. Flandre glared at him as he pointed his gun at her. After a brief stare off Enrich fired again but this time he didn't have the luxury of surprise. With one swift motion of her hand Flandre caught the bullet from mid flight between her finger. She looked at it for a briefest of moment and then back at Enrich. She then flipped the bullet in her fingers, then lifted her hand to throw it back. Enrich dropped his gun and covered his face in terrified anticipation. Flandre was just about to throw the bullet when a slight whimper made her stop for a second. She glanced back at Stephen and his family and saw Eve, staring at her with eyes wide open and tears streaming down her cheeks. No words were uttered but there was no need to for it. Flandre knew that look well. Too well. And yet she couldn't figure out why. It said, "Have mercy!"  
Flandre stared at her and the rage that had just been planted on her face started to fade to surprise and then shock when she realized what she was doing. The bullet she had just held between her fingers fell to the ground again making a slight clink as it did. Flandre then stumbled back as she tried to get a hold of herself again. She grabbed her hair with both of her hands and the look on her face started twisting into anguished.

"What am I doing, what am I doing, what am I doing...? Breathe! Just breathe! Come on, snap out of it," Flandre mumbled to herself as she backed away from the family still clutching her head and glancing at them every now and then. All of them still looked utterly terrified but now also somewhat confused. Flandre finally stopped when she hit the remnants of the tent that had collapsed in the recent skirmish and fell to her back. At that point Enrich grabbed his gun again and pointed it at Flandre. Flandre however didn't wait around to explain herself any further. When she hit the ground back first she immediately turned to her stomach, scrambled onto her feet and after couple cumbersome steps she took flight. Enrich dropped his gun again as she witnessed Flandre taking off. Stephen and his family let out audible gasps as they all watched Flandre rise up into the air and take one last glance back at them. She mouthed the words, "I'm sorry," but she was already too far away for them to see it. She now knew that they wouldn't remember her kindly. To them she was a demon posing as a human and maybe they weren't even too far off.

As Flandre flew away she started shedding tears of her own. These however were more of a tears of frustration rather than sadness. She had no idea what had come to her back there. The family had every right to be scared and yet when one of them had tried to defend them in panic Flandre had somehow seen this as direct threat to her. She knew that no normal human couldn't really threaten her with normal means. She was ashamed.

After flying for good while she finally landed onto a large flat plain to try to gather her thoughts. She wasn't paying even enough attention to her landing so when she touched the ground she pretty much just slammed face first into the rubble and rolled a couple meters until she finally stopped and layed on her back.

"Get a hold of yourself. I cannot continue like this," Flandre uttered out loud to try to reassure herself of her sanity. She then sat up painstakingly slowly while holding her head. Some pieces of metal and rubble that had sticked to her shirt, vest and skirt in that impact were all now falling back into the ground as she sat up.

"Okay, I need to stay focused onto my goal. I cannot let myself become distracted. Those things, the walkers, they come from the west... Or so Stephen told me," Flandre thought to herself but grew sad again when the thoughts of Stephen and his family crossed her mind. She had betrayed their trust and they had all the rights to be afraid. But ultimately she had not harmed them anymore than what she had done to Enrich. All that could have ended so much worse. Then why it was that it all felt so conflicting. Why did she feel like she had done some unforgiveable atrocities just then when she actually had saved those people.

"The look she gave me... Why do I feel like I've seen it before? I haven't met Eve before, have I? No, I haven't. Then why...," Flandre thought out loud when a sudden vision flashed in her mind. A vision of that burning city she had seen in those torments I had given her. It was like she was reliving that vision. But this time she was standing on a roof top and in front of her she saw Remilia standing on a roof top couple houses away from her. The two were staring at each other for a moment. She then felt herself clutching a piece of cold metal in her hands but before she could look at what she was holding Flandre's eyes burst wide open and she sat up right there and then. She was holding a slightly bent metal pipe. Without saying a word or even looking at the pipe, she threw it away. She then looked up to the sky.

"The sphere... okay, it's there. I have to head away from it if I want to head to west. Let's see what I find there," She uttered to herself while looking at the sky to give herself directions. She didn't want to admit it to herself yet. She didn't want to acknowledge the vision she had seen. In her mind she felt safe if she just ignored it and pretended everything was fine. But deep inside she knew that she had to hurry if she ever wanted to reach the main culprit, for her mind was once again succumbing back into mist of insanity.

The first day she spent flying non stop. Her goal was to cover as much ground as possible as fast as possible. And to be honest she was making real haste. Below her were only rolling plains and small hills of grey rubble that sped past her as she flew. What she also took notice of were couple walkers she saw while flying high in the skies. And just as she had been told they were seemingly coming from the west. Flandre took this as a good sign. At least she was heading into the right direction. The walkers she saw were much different than what she had defeated earlier. One was shaped almost like a spider with eight legs and one seemed to be moving on tyres like a tank. Not that Flandre knew what a tank was. These walkers were scattered far away from each other and she didn't really feel threatened by them because they seemed to be just minding their own business heading east without caring what was going on above them. Flandre didn't want herself to be distracted too much however so she just pushed on in the hopes of being close to the answers.

The second day she had to stop for a moment fo the first time due to getting exhausted. She had spent all this time in the air without bothering to gather her strength so no wonder she was getting tired. On her way she had seen more of those walkers, each being more different to the last she had seen. One resembled a worm and she wouldn't have even seen it if it hadn't burst out from the ground right below her. It had been the biggest walker she had seen so far and had slightly startled her as well as it had dashed from the rubble with a roar. At this point it would probably be more fitting to call it a crawler. She had also seen what looked like a makeshift village. She saw a cluster of lit and hastily built buildings below her at one point. It seemed that there was also a whole functioning mine. Or at least that's what she figured from a huge hole in the ground of rubble near the village. At first she had had an urge to check it out but ultimately managed to steel her resolve to continue. The memories of Stephen and his family were still fresh in her mind and these were more than enough to turn her away from her curiosity. On top of that she couldn't be sure how the poeple in that village would react. The last people she had had contact with would surely hate her for the rest of their lives. Nevertheless she had once again covered more ground but not as much as she had hoped. This was due to her tiredness. She decided that she'd rest only for a moment though. She didn't want to waste too much time just sitting idly. The paradise wouldn't come to her just by staying still.

The third day she really had to stop. She had hoped that the resting she had done the other day would have given her enough energy to continue but ultimately she was brought to the brink of exhaustion caused by constant flying and not sleeping in 3 whole days. Eventually she had to land and rest properly. But she didn't want to. She forced herself to continue even if it meant enduring great fatigue. And everyone should understand that there's only one thing that this could lead to. Collapsing. She drove herself to such extremes that she ultimately fell from the sky and crashed into a hill side. From distance it looked like a red shooting star fell from the sky lifting great amounts of rubble and dust into the air as it hit the ground. The crash it let out echoed for a bit until the junk she had launched up into the air fell back to the ground and the dust started to clear. Once she regained her senses she found herself in a hole she had created upon the impact with the ground. After gazing upwards from her small hole she could only see the black sky, red clouds and a small bit of that glowing black sphere. Just how much further it would be until she would find something? Was she even heading to the right direction? Flandre did not know, nor did she care. She had completely lost her resolve to continue. So with the little strength she had left she rolled around in her little 'nest' and dag a little. In no time she found a sizeable piece of old and dirty fabric from the rubble. Flandre made and audible sigh as she looked at it. It wasn't ideal but there was no better option now. It was not like she had any strength to be disgusted as she looked at the stained and worn piece of fabric. She then utterly exhausted rolled to a relatively comfortable position in that small hole, laid that piece of fabric onto herself as a blanket and allowed her thoughts to carry her into a much needed sleep.

Flandre had no idea for how long she slept but due to it being completely dreamless it felt like she had slept for ages and for all she knew she very well could have. But while she had slept rather piecefully her wake up was anything but. She woke up to the ground shaking violently around her. Flandre's eyes shot wide open just early enough to see at first a piece of plastic hitting her to her face. She shook it off and was just about to stand up and look what was going on but then a much heavier piece of metal fell onto her hindering her mivements. As she was trying to push the piece away the walls of her little hole started caving in around her. In few seconds she was left completely submerged under the rubble. The quaking of the earth was made worse by the sounds that eminated above her. It was like monstrous thunder was shaking the very earth itself. It was just constant banging and rumble. As the situation started to dawn to her a slight claustrophobia started to kick in now when she was buried in the rubble and the world above her was audibly about to end. The little time she had just spent underground had already made her breathing quite rapid and she was starting to sweat. So without wanting to waste any more time trapped she started digging her way upwards toward the rumble. She was desperately clawing the rubble away from her path trying to get to the open when _**CRUNCH! **_A deafening sound rang out just above her head and then a massive pressure pushed her back into the ground. Flandre could only scream in pain as the pressure from above squeezed her back down with such force that she could feel her ribs cracking under the immense weight that was being directed at her from above. All the little air was knocked out from her lungs as the rubble around her pressed painfully against her body, some pieces of metal piercing her skin and tissue under it. Then, just as nothing had happened the pressure left. Leaving Flandre shocked and gasping for air. This however lasted only just for a moment because Flandre's survival instincts kicked in just there. She started frantically clawing her way back up yelling incoherently while doing so. She was just starting to hope that the next swipe of her hand would reveal the black sky and the red clouds when the horrid sound rang out again. _**CRUNCH! **_Flandre's howls of agony turned into blood curdling screams as she was pushed back down by yet another wave of immense pressure. Blood was starting to flood Flandre's mouth as her panicking was making her breathing harder and harder. She tried to writhe and push away the weight and the rubble away from her but she was locked in place by the intense weight. The panic had taken over completely and breathing was impossible. Flandre even started suffering from the lack of oxygen. The edge of her vision was starting to darken and with that her muscles instinctically fell limp. She waited in shock. As the pressure finally left again she could finally gasp for air once more. She was shocked and paralyzed. What ever had just happened, she had not expected it. She didn't even know how far down she had sank. But as the rumbling continued above her she started to brace herself for yet another session of being mangled but... it never came. She could feel the rubble shifting and stirring slightly all around her but never again did she get roughed up again like before.

"What's happening," Flandre could only think while holding back tears of pain. Had she been able to move freely she would have retracted into a fetal position. Her chest and stomach hurt so much after the pressure she endured. Her ribs had been cracked for the most part and many of her internal organs had been damaged but she managed to live through, although with great amounts of pain. However, while before she had been panicking to get herself free from the rubble now she was unable to move even a muscle. The pain and the shock made moving impossible. But while she couldn't move she could hear what was happening above her. The rumble was getting quieter, or rather further away.

"Is it over?" Flandre could barely utter even if speaking hurt like hell. What even had happened? Did she even want to know? Maybe it would be just best if she stayed there. It hurt. It hurt so badly. Why did it have to hurt so bad?

"No, I will not be buried here. At least not yet. Maybe what had just shook the ground above can give me more answers. Maybe it even was what I have been looking for? Maybe...," Flandre thought to herself as she tried to gather her resolve again. She might have been roughed pretty badly but she had been worse and had always walked out of it alive. This would be no different. With these thoughts in her mind she managed to gather enough will power to force her arms up to start clawing her way back towards the ground level. She winced at the pain. When she had been motionless the pain, while terrible hadn't been even half as bad as it was when she tried to move. But nevertheless that was the only way she could get up she just had to endure it. She grabbed whatever she could and clawed and kicked herself upwards. And anything she couldn't grasp or if it was too light to help her to pull herself up she would just push it away from her path. She was making painstakingly slow progress which wasn't helping the pain she was feeling at all. Flandre liked to think how she would claw herself free right there and now but in truth she had to keep numerous breaks just because she couldn't bear the pain she felt in her chest and stomach. But little by little she was nearing the surface and when her hand finally broke through the top layer of the rubble all the pain she felt vanished as she basically thrashed herself out from the depths of that rubble she had been buried into. As she finally got her head above the ground she gasped deeply which proved to be mistake because she winced from the pain immediately and ended up caughing a fair bit of blood.

"AAAAAAAAAH," Flandre then screamed partially from the pain, partially from the releaf that she was finally free from that hell hole. She then pulled her both arms free and made the final push to pull herself out. Once free she collapsed onto the ground. Her breath was wheezing and every time she breathed in she could feel the her fractured ribs scratching against each other. She wanted to puke. But at the moment all she could do was moan, groan and dry-wheeze while laying on the ground and just trying to gather any possible remaining strength she may have had left.

As she layed on the ground trying conjure enough resolve to move she finally noticed that while the rumbling and the trembling of the earth had quieted down notably, they haven't disappeared completely. At least yet. They were still audible. Confused, curious and still in pain Flandre pushed her upper body slightly up with her elbows to be able to see around herself. It took her a moment to position herself well enough but once she did and glanced to her left she saw something rather unexpected.

What had felt like the Devil himself descending from the sky to destroy all, was not in fact just something, but somethings. And there was alot of them. Walkers. Dozens, hundred maybe even thousands of walkers shaking the ground beneath their enormous steps. All of them heading into same direction. All of them different from each other just like so far they had been and on top of that there were even couple flying ones.

"Holy...," Flandre could only utter as she glanced around her. The army of huge metal behemoths had completely annihilated the ground upon which they had threaded. While the landscape had been just rubble before, now it looked even more crude. Trails of giant footsteps overlapping each other, trails in the rubble seemingly left by some kind of walker that had crawled through the rubble. There were even some gaping holes indicating that there were more of those worm-like walkers. It took a fair moment for Flandre to take this all in but when she was finally done gawking at the destruction around her she finally realized that she was laying on a wide open area. If a walker would happen to come from behind her or one of the earlier ones would look back she would be spotted right away. And in this condition she wouldn't be able to pose too much of a threat to one walker, let alone to an army of them. Flandre quickly flipped herself onto her stomach, growling in pain as she did but she muffled her groans as well as she could. She then started clawing and pushing her way toward the closest hole left behind by one of those worm-walkers. Getting to relative safety and remaining unseen was her most immediate goal. The crawling itself hurt bad enough but when she finally reached the edge of the hole and dropped in with her back first she couldn't help but to cry out and let out few sobs. She felt utterly horrible. But on the bright side at least she wouldn't have to hopefully worry about being seen now. Or at least so she hoped as she looked weakly around herself in the spacious cavern-like hole in the ground that seemed to continue endlessly downwards into the rubble. Flandre could feel warmth eminating from within the hole indicating that it went deep. Or at least somewhat as deep as that ravine she had seen before. As she looked back at the mouth of the hole she could see the black sky and the clouds. The sphere was this time not visible to her and to be honest she preferred it that way. The low rumbling caused by the marching walker army was anough to stress her, not mentioning her injuries. She didn't need that irritating sphere to top it off.

"Okay... Okay, calm down. You're alive so just calm down and breathe," Flandre uttered to herself with closed eyes as she layed on the floor of that cavern-like hole. Breathing was easier said than done thought with the condition her ribs were in. The pain she had felt after falling down had somewhat subsided but did not leave completely.

"What the hell was that? Just how many of those giants were there? And where did they all come from? ...Or why?" Flandre finally asked the most obvious question out loud. So far she had seen only individual walkers and only couple each day but never had she seen even two walkers in any kind of relative proximity to each other. So seeing hundreds of them all marching together all of a sudden was astonishing and terrifying at the same time.

"Just... why? Why did they all group up all of a sudden?" She kept on mumbling and tried to push herself to a some sort of a sitting position while doing so. After few attempts and groans of pain she finally managed to position herself so that she could sit while leaning against a larger piece of rubble that was portruding from the cavern floor.

"Did something...,"  
"Compel them to do that?" Flandre's voice echoed through the cavern. Her eyes widened and she froze onto her place. While it had been her voice that echoed through the hole she had only uttered the first part. Flandre's eyes darted all around the darkness of the hole trying to pin point the source of that sound that had imitated her own voice. The silence was so pure she could hear her own thumping heart but couldn't see or hear anything else.

"I... Am I... *sigh I'm hallucinating. I- It's not real, come on, keep it together. I'm not going mad... I am not," Flandre tried to calm herself and gently shook her head.

"Being mad is relative, just look around yourself, does the world seem any more sane?" She heard the voice again. And this time she was certain of it. She had heard it. But she didn't want to. She was losing it. The isolation was gnawing at her sanity.

"Go away! You're not real, I don't need you," Flandre then yelled back at the voice that was mimicking her own. The only sound around her was the echo of her own voice bouncing off the walls of the cavern. She was already about to let out a sigh of releaf when she heard a much more quieter and maybe a little irritated sound say, "Wow, now that is rude." Flandre had had enough. If it wasn't her mind playing with her then she was going to find out who it was.

"If you're not going to leave me be then at least show yourself," She yelled again, clearly angry by the fact that she was being mocked.

"It's not my fault that you haven't seen me. I don't have too much freedom of movement. I'm down here," Her own voice responded and it was at this point when she finally took the time to finally listen more carefully. The voice was truly coming from below her. Flandre then glanced downwards around her but was taken back when she didn't see anyone or anything of interest.

"*sigh Just breathe it is all just in my head...," Flandre uttered and closed her eyes. She had let her delusions get the better of her. And she was already satisfied with this idea when she heard the voice yet again, "My god, are you blind or are ignoring me because you're just rude?" Now Flandre had had enough. She spun around not caring about her fractured ribs and stared down at the cavern floor. She saw nothing else other than metal scraps, a dirty white container some pieces of fabric and plastic and... a broken mirror. Flandre stared at the mirror for a good moment. There was something strange about it. It wasn't the fact that is was broke, nor did it have anything to do with the shape or size of its frame, no. The fact that bothered her was that she could see her own reflection from it. She stared at it in confusion. Vampires weren't supposed to be able to see their reflections from mirrors. The only place she had seen her own image being reflected before was the surface of the misty lake. Flandre crawled a little closer to the mirror to look at it closer. She then tilted her head in confusion when the most unexpected thing happened. Her reflection, it didn't move at all. It just stood there un moving like it wasn't a reflection at all. But when the eyes of her reflection suddenly snapped to look at her Flandre wasn't sure if it even was a reflection.

"What the hell?" Flandre manage to mutter as she backed away from the mirror a little. The reflection followed her with its eyes. It was unnerving. And rather captivating. So captivating in fact that she had completely forgotten about the voice already. So when the reflection spoke it took Flandre completely off guard. It was even more shocking when it spoke with her own voice.

"Took you long enough. What are you doing here?" The reflection suddenly asked. Flandre was nearly going to scream when she heard this.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, you're NOT real," She yelled back at the reflection and pointed her finger at it. She wasn't going to let her mind trick herself anymore. She was going to call out the hallucinations in order to get rid of them. But the reflection persisted.

"That's rude, you know. I was just asking what brings you here and the first thing you do is accuse me of not being real," The reflection returned and looked rather irritated. Flandre was taken back by this statement. This felt awfully real. But there was no way that this reflection could be real, was there? Flandre crawled a little bit closer in curiosity.

"What are you?" Flandre simply asked with doubtful look on her face as she approached the mirror again. The reflection seemed to perk up after hearing Flandre's question for it turned its gaze back towards Flandre immediately.

"Now that is a good question. I guess it depends on who you are," The reflection responded rather cheerfully. Flandre was confused.

"What's that supposed to mean? What do you mean it depends on who I am?" Flandre asked again for clarification but the reflection just shrugged.

"You have to figure it out on your own," The reflection said and shook its head in defeat. The reflectoin seemed to act rather genuenly but that alone didn't convince Flandre. She wasn't convinced that what she saw before her wasn't just a figment of her imagination.

"Okay, then how did you get here?" Flandre asked and stared at the reflection intensively. She was determined to find any flaws that would point out it not being real.

"That's something I'd like to know as well. You brought us here, not me. Care to tell me how did we end up here?" The reflection said and seemingly sat down. Flandre looked at it confused. How could it claim that it didn't even know where it was? It didn't make any sense.

"You're not making any kind of sense, you know that," Flandre simply uttered with doubtful tone and look on his face.

"How come? You see me in this mirror. And I can only see what is around this mirror," The reflection responded and simply shrugged its shoulders while staring at Flandre with a slight frown. Flandre let out a frustrated sigh and turned away from the mirror.

"So you're saying that you're just someone who looks like me, is trapped in a mirror and has no idea who they are and how they got there. Just what even are you?" Flandre spurted with audible irritation in her voice.

"That's about right, except for the last part. The 'who am I' part I mean," The reflection responded.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Flandre asked and glanced slightly behind her only to see that reflection still staring at her intently.

"You think I'm a figment of your imagination. So that's what I am. But I could be so much more. I am what you want me to be. I could even be of use to you. I could be your friend. If you'd just let me," The reflection continued and cracked a slight smile. Flandre stared at it silently and turned a little more to face the reflection. She then dragged herself a little closer.

"How's that work?" Flandre asked and looked clearly unconvinced.

"Simple, if you want my help just fill me in on what happened. How did we end up in this hole?" The reflection said and shrugged. Flandre stared at it. Trying to decide wether to believe it or not. After a moment Flandre sighed and shook her head. She had decided. And so Flandre talked. She filled the reflection in on everything that had lead her to this point. From the very start, beginning from Marisa's initial transformation, what followed, how she found the clock and how it could be used to traverse through time. What happened after and how she eventually found herself from wrong timeline. She then filled the reflection in with all she knew was going on. How the universe itself was now collapsing because of her actions, that there was someone using this flow of events to their advantage and how their attempts on stopping the supposed culprit behind all of this had lead her to this situation. She had to spent a lot of time explaining things in great detail for her story to make sense which in turn stretched her story more and more. And when she was finally done the two were left into silence as the reflection just stared at her intrigued look on its face.

"So what do you think?" Flandre finally asked in anticipation.

"I think that you've gotten yourself into a quite situation," The reflection responded and shook its head.

"You don't have to tell me the obvious," Flandre retorted with rather irritated look on her face. The reflection stared at her for a moment before continuing, "Well then, how about something less obvious? Your plan on finding the culprit is absolutely idiotic." Flandre's gaze snapped at this straight at the reflection. The irritation on her face was now overflowing.

"You watch your mouth," Flandre hissed but the reflection lifted its hand to cut Flandre short.

"Just think about it. The world around you, just how big is it? You're searching a needle from a hay stack. It would have been much wiser to draw out the culprit rather than to try find them. There's something for each of us that will make us tilt. Find that and you'll control your opponent," The reflection continued with thoughtful look on her face.

"Well, what should I do then?" Flandre asked with much more desperate tone and look on her face. She was leaning ever more closer to the mirror.

"You should start by minimizing the damage. You've obviously been dancing to their tune this far. If I was the culprit this would be exactly what I'd want. Get you people separated and spread thin. I would want to hide in the outside world because, let's face it, it's a perfect hiding place. You've marched straight into their trap by becoming separated from your friends. If you continue to dance to their tunes you wont accomplish anything. You'll go mad, or if they're merciful they'll come and end you when you've reached your breaking point," The reflection continued with much more darker look on its face. Flandre's face fell when she heard this. Deep inside she had known that this would be the case but she had dreaded to think about it.

"That's why we have to make few changes to your approach," The reflection added. Flandre then glanced up to look at the reflection that was now grinning a little.

"What do you mean?" Flandre asked. The reflection had her full attention now.

"What I mean is that you stop acting according to their plans. From this point on you'll start initiating action, not reacting to it when it comes to you. Turn the tide, apply pressure, make them sweat," The reflection said with allusive grin on its face. Flandre stared at the reflection for a moment.

"And how I'm going to do that?" Flandre asked with almost intriguied look on her face.

"Simple really. You remember those walkers from earlier?" The reflection asked and pointed upwards.

"Yeah, what about them?" Flandre asked after a brief moment of thought. She wondered what new the reflection could say about them. She had thought it would be obvious to just follow them back to their origins.

"Did you count them?" She then heard the reflection ask.

"What?" Flandre asked confused after the bizarre question.

"What?" The reflection asked too and stared at Flandre. Both of them just stared at each other for a moment in silence. The reflection then tilted its head before sighing.

"So as I was saying, those walkers from earlier, following them will lead you nowhere," The reflection finally continued.

"How so?" Flandre asked a bit confused.

"The world above your head, that's not natural. It has been hand crafted, molded. And it is being continued to mold all the time," The reflection said and leaned closer to Flandre in that mirror with much more intense look in its eyes.

"What do you mean by that?" Flandre asked utterly confused.

"I mean that when the time breaks everything that used to be bound by its rules is now free to be manipulated. Like stone turned to sand. If don't let this sink into the crevices of your mind, the world around you and you can be manipulated however the culprit wishes," The reflection said with even more intense spark in its eyes.

"The world around you is an illusion! Without time there is no progress. You will be stuck here forever. Find something! Find time! And grasp it. Don't. Let. Go," The reflection almost hissed now. Flandre was taken back a little by this. She hadn't realized this earlier but the reflection's words echoed really menacingly around the cavern. She looked around herself. The reflection's voice was starting to fade and shimmer in her mind. The echoes however didn't stop, it felt like they were coming from each direction, every time blending further in with one another until it was all just deafeningly loud white noise. Flandre had to cover her ears just to try to keep that noise out but even then she couldn't hear even her own thoughts. She closed her eyes while holding her ears and the only thing she could do was scream.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH," And... it stopped. Silence. Darkness. Flandre was afraid to uncover her ears in the fear of still hearing that white noise. So instead of moving her hands away she opened her eyes just slightly. But when she did she had to focus onto herself for when she opened her eyes she still couldn't se anything. She tried to open her eyes again only to realize that they were truly open. She was sitting in the dark with her hand covering her ears. She slowly moved her hands from her ears only to be met with... silence. But the more she thought about it it wasn't actually silent. There was the slight sound of water drops falling and hitting the ground in the distance. And a hum of a warm breeze. Wait, breeze? Flandre hadn't felt a gust of wind on her face since having that dust cloud hit her in the face when she defeated that walker. Flandre stumbled a little trying to get to her knees first. She was instantly met with a severe pain from her chest but it wasn't nearly as bad as before. She then carefully stood up trying to grasp something to lean against but didn't find anything in her immediate vicinity. Upon getting up completely she looked around again. She still couldn't see anything.

"Where am I?" Flandre uttered out loud, her voice echoing from the walls around her which lead her to believe that she was still in that cavern. She looked around herself but couldn't see the entrance which she had used to get into the cavern in the first place. It all made a little sense so she ended up conjuring a ball of fire to her finger tip just to see where she was. The light flickered into life illuminating the cavern around her, the ceiling, floor and the walls, it was all still made of rubble just like before. She looked upwards. The hole that had lead to the above ground which she had used to get into the cavern in the first place was gone however and instead the hole just continued upwards until the darkness took over the dim light her fire was emitting. She then turned around and looked downwards. The hole continued to that direction as well with only darkness within it. But then she felt it again. The breeze, it was coming from that hole. It was coming from deeper within. Intrigued she was about to take a step deeper into the depths when a faint glimmer caught her attention from the corner of her eye. She curiously glanced to the direction of the glimmer to just take a quick peek at what it was before she would get going. But when she saw the mirror standing there, leaning against the wall of the cavern she was stopped. She stared at it. It was cracked like before but this time there was no reflection. Just like there shouldn't be.

"Hello...?" Flandre uttered in slight anticipation. She heard her voice echo through the cavern amongst the dripping water. At first she had expected a reply but as the seconds flowed by she realized that there was none coming. She then sighed a little but instead of going deeper into the cavern she turned toward the mirror and walked up to it. She winced a little from pain as she knelt before the mirror. Once she had found a comfortable position she just stared at it.

"Was that all just within my head?" Flandre asked out loud while looking at the mirror. She was half expecting a responce and half expecting nothing. She got the latter.

"Find time...?" Flandre then murmured to herself. After she just stood there quietly pondering the sentence. Even if it had been just the fabrication of her imagination it still didn't explain why the cavern around her had suddenly changed. What she had heard during her hallucinations had gotten her to think and her thoughts, no matter what angle she looked at the situation, lead her to only one conclusion. She reached down into her pockets and pulled out the slightly cracked watch. She stared at it. Stared at it for a long time. The surface of the watch seemed to be cracked revealing the dial of the watch slightly. But that crack was enough to show Flandre an arm of that watch, even though just slightly. But that small peak was enough to reveal that even after all the damage it had endured it was still ticking tenaciously. Flandre felt the warm breeze on her face again as she stared at the quietly ticking watch.

"You meant this, didn't you," She uttered, finally adverting her gaze from the watch and back toward the empty mirror. She was once again met with nothing. But that didn't matter for in her mind she had already had her confirmation. Her thoughts were no longer plagued by doubt for she was now certain. Of what she was certain she couldn't yet say anything other than that she would see this through.

She then pocketed the watch again, careful not to damage it any further. She then looked once again back at the mirror. Looked at its cracks. She reached for its surface and let her hand slide on it. She then found one of the cracks with her touch and stopped onto it. After staring at it for a second she pressed one of her claws into the crack and with a single jerk of her finger she pulled a shard of that mirror off from its frame. Without saying a word she took that shard and pocketed it as well. After that she stood up, still feeling the pain in her chest and turned to look at the chasm leading further into the depths. She had no idea what she would find down there but she was sure to find out no matter what.

As she started heading downwards the first thing she did was extinguish the fire she had used to initially see around herself. She thought that it would be better to let her eyes get used to the dark and if something went wrong it would easier for her to hide in the dark. Not that she planned to let things go wrong but she couldn't help but to start feeling unease. Because the further down she went the hotter it got. Few times she even heard the sound of flowing water and upon further inspection she found a stream flowing from the wall of the cavern and forming another stream going down deeper into the cave. Flandre made sure to walk far away from that stream. She didn't want to slip and fall into it even though it wasn't even ancle deep. She also noticed that the further she went down the more the temperature rose and the air became more and more humid. To the point when it was actually hard to breathe. But it happened slowly and gradually as she descended so it was bearable as one got used to it. However there was always something that she didn't get used to. The sudden gusts of air eminating from the depths toward which she was heading. They all came so suddenly and carried no sound with them other than the howl the wind makes. And every time one gust hit Flandre's face she couldn't help but to flich as the sudden hot air hit her like whispers telling her what was to come deeper within. But even if the gusts of air came every time very suddenly there was always this light breeze. Not really uncomfortable but easily noticable if one paid mind to it. It gave her the uncomfortable feeling of being in bowels of a greater beast and that she was only heading deeper toward its heart.

Flandre's journey through the dark, dank and hot cavern lasted long. So long in fact that at some point she though she was going in circles or that she was making no progress at all. But those fears were forgotten when at one point, few days worth of time after she had started her journey downwards, she came across a ravine that cut her path and made the small stream she had followed fall into it and disappear. Had she not been able to fly over it her journey would have been over, right there and then. Luckily this wasn't the case. And even when she flew over it it brought back memories. The ravine before. The one she had seen near the mountain peak. Could this be similiar? Would she emerge on the surface if she were to fly up? The hot air eminating below certainly entailed that. Maybe it was even the same ravine. She however wasn't going to try and find out. She flew over the ravine, glanced back once and continued her trek once again. This glance however wasn't something she did out of bittersweet feelings of maybe seeing something she had seen earlier during her journey. It was something she had picked up on during her trek so far. As she had descended further and further downwards she had gotten this urge to just stop randomly and look around herself. As if to spot who was there. Because she felt that way. She felt that from the moment she had come to her senses in this cavern and started walking she had not been alone. But it was how it felt that bothered her the most. She felt the eyes on her but she didn't feel like it was hostile. It didn't give of any vibes of bad intentions. Nor any positive either. And that's what bothered her the most. It felt like cold indifference. And she didn't like.

The journey continued and continued. Flandre had actually already messed up her count of days she had spent in this cavern but it was starting to near at least ten. The clock in her pocket didn't help much in that either because she could only see through a small crack on its shell and she didn't want to risk opening it. However she still had her confirmations of progress. A new stream of water had appeared in the cavern and disappeared shortly after. It had poured into the cave from the floor and after couple hours of walking Flandre came across the spot where it dove back into the ground seemingly creating its own tiny cavern. The gusts of air had also started bring steam into the cavern each time one could be felt again. The air had gotten hotter and hotter but at one point the heating stopped and for a while now the air had stayed the same temperature no matter how much deeper she got. Together with the steam she also started feeling slight tremors with each gust. Like something was shifting in the ground. She had bad memeories of shaking ground so Flandre stayed on her toes. She hoped that this would mean she was getting close to the end of the tunnel. Now would also be a good time for that because her injuries from before had mostly healed. It had taken longer than she had hoped but that was only to be expected because she had not taken a proper time to rest and let her wounds heal. Nevertheless she could now even jump and run without it hurting too much.

These thoughts distracted her enough that she almost didn't realize that the cavern around her had gotten larger and had it not been for another gust of air eminating from the depths she wouldn't have stopped and taken a glance around her. The cave wasn't larger, another cave was conjoining with it. Flandre stopped and stared at it. It looked identical in size and shape to the cave she had walked in all this time. She then stopped to think for a moment. What was that had caused this cavern to form in the first place? She felt her stomach sinking when she remembered that she had been walking in the tracks of one of those worm-like walkers. And now seeing those tracks form a junction made her insides turn. Just thinking about how one of those things could suddenly come crawling at her from the dark depths was making her feel uneasy. But then she realized that she had not seen any of those walkers during her time in this cavern. Had she gotten lucky? If so then she hoped that her luck would continue as she continued pressing forward. As she kept walking she could feel those tremors from before getting stronger each time a gust of air hit her in the face. Not only that but she started seeing more caves conjoining the one she was in. Or did her cave conjoin to the others? It was hard to tell which was the original one because in the end they all merged into one large cave and led her even further down. Eventually the cave got so large that she couldn't see the walls around her anymore so she took flight just to understand how massive it was. But as she kept of flying toward the ceiling of the cave and didn't find it she was starting to feel uneasy.

"Just how large did this thing get?" Flandre had to ask out loud just to make sure she indeed was seeing this. After few more moments of not finding the ceiling she decided to descend back to the floor level. But even that took longer than it had taken for her to rise that hight. This proved that the cavern was expanding the further she went down. She had flown forward the whole time she had tried to find the ceiling so the distance between her and the floor and grown faster than she had realized. IT made her sigh for a releaf when she finally felt the sturdy ground beneath her feet. But her releaf was short lived. Flandre had barely even started walking again when she had to make an abrubt stop. The floor she had thought to be her only way of guiding herself forward suddenly just ended. Had she not gotten used to the dark she wouldn't have noticed it and would have walked straight off the cliff. Not that she couldn't have flown back up but it would have been a nasty surprise regardless. Flandre stared at the end of the road before her eyes. Just how much did this cavern expand? And what did it expand into? Flandre knelt down and reached down into the darkness from the cliff's edge to see if it was just a tiny drop but it wasn't. Her hand couldn't feel anything down there, nor below the cliff she was standing on. She then realized that she was standing on just a thin layer of scrap that could probably only barely hold her weight. She was taken back a little by this. She scrambled back onto her feet and backed away from the cliff just so that she wouldn't be in immediate danger if the cliff under her feet decided to give in.

"Hello!?" Flandre then yelled into the darkness. It wasn't really to find out wether someone would respond or anything, it was more of a compulsive reaction. The urge to shout and hear the echo when one has reached a top of a mountain. And indeed the echo was there. And it was strong. The echo must have bounced off the distant walls of the cavern for over ten seconds. And this meant one thing. Flandre might not have been the brightest creature alive but she still very well knew that echo doesn't form without walls to bounce off from. That cavern had a back wall. Fueled by that thought Flandre took flight carefully, glanced behind herself one more time and then started slowly gliding toward the deep chasm. She felt a slight anxiety creep over her when she saw her feet moving over the edge. And then she felt it. The gust of air hitting her face. No, not just face. It hit her feet first. The air was now coming below her. Flandre glanced down toward the void beneath her feet. And there it was. A faint orange glow far, far away in the distance. But there was something else as well. A metallic screech could now also be heard and as Flandre squinted her eyes she could see blue light quickly appearing from the orange glow before both disappeared quickly. Flandre stopped for a moment. That must be where she was heading. But just what could that be? She hadn't even stopped to think what she would find at the end of the tunnel and now when she was nearing that end she was overcome by this sudden doubt.

"No, the only way for me is to go toward it. Turning around would be admitting defeat right here and now. I have to see this through, no matter what awaits down there," Flandre thought to herself steeling her nerves as she started descending toward the depths again where she had seen the orange glow. She figured that what ever it was it was causing those gusts of air. Her doubts were further strengthened by the fact that the further she descended down that constant slight breeze from before got stronger and stronger. The air was also getting drier. A moment ago it had been humid and oppressive, now it was starting sting one's nose everytime it was breathed in. To somehow cope with it Flandre descided to untie her ascot from around her neck and the tie it in front of her mouth. This eased the breathing a little bit.

Flandre didn't know how far she had descended already but when the orange glow appeared suddenly again and seemed much larger and brighter than before Flandre was filled with resolve to rush down the and see what it was. She was actually just about to quicken her pace and start rushing toward it when the gust of air hit her again. And this time it wasn't just a gust. The burst of air hit her like tsunami throwing her around as easily as a feather in a storm. Luckily there were no walls near her so she was in no real danger while she was been flown around, other than getting dizzy of course. While she was thrown around in the air she could see brief glimpses at the orange glow below her and again she could swear she saw something blue emerging from it yet again and disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared. And there it was again, that metallic screech.

The stream of air finally died down when the glow dimmed again and Flandre was left floating in the air gasping for breath. She had been caught off guard a little. Nevertheless she started descending downwards again. She didn't want to be caught in the air next time that glow would return with those winds. And so she started to hurry. Picking up her speed she headed down as fast as she deemed safe. On her way down she decided to light a small flame in front of her just so that she would see when she was nearing the ground level and wouldn't smack face first into the bottom of the cavern. If this was even a cavern anymore.

As she descended the harder the air became to breathe. It was no longer the dryness or the temperature. There was something in the air that made it heavy to breathe. Flandre had to remove her ascot slightly from her mouth just so that she could caugh a little. And while she was doing so there it suddenly was. Ground, illuminated by the fire she had conjured.

"ACK," Flandre yelped as she sought to slow down the speed in which she was heading toward it. She managed to slow herself down plenty enough but was still thrown onto all fours upon impact with the ground. She let out a releaved sigh. Releaved that she had avoided the impact and also releaved that her feet were once again on _terra firma _as they say. Well, solid wasn't really the truth because as Flandre looked at the ground beneath her feet she saw that even if she was so deep underground it was still just rubble.

"Just how deep am I? And how deep does this... trash go?" Flandre spat out in annoyance kicking a piece of that rubble. She watched as the piece of rubble bounced a little and finally stopped. She then turned her gaze away from it and looked around herself. She couldn't have been more disappointed. It was just the same as above ground. She couldn't see too far but everywhere she looked it was just the same old plain rubble.

"Okay, what am I missing here? There can't just be large undreground cavern for no reason," Flandre thought to herself while turning around trying to find anything to focus onto. As she turned around the flickers of her flames echoed through the silence of that empty space meaning that there were walls somewhere around her. She just didn't know which way was the right way toward the source of that glow she had seen earlier for she hadn't seen it again during her dash to get to the ground level. This had been her goal but now she was having difficulty navigating. That was until her eyes finally caught a faint glint in the distance. By the looks of it something was reflecting the wavering lights of the flame she was holding on her palm. Having no other way to go she started heading toward that glimmer. And as she got closer to it so did the glimmer got stronger. All the way to the point until Flandre could see that what was reflecting the light was in fact a large metal cylinder portruding from the rubble. A large brass cylinder to be specific. Flandre looked at it. It was at least ten meters in diameter and many times that in height. She walked closer and intended to touch it but before she could even lay a finger onto it she felt that it was really hot so she thought better of it and pulled her hand back. So instead of touching it herself she picked up a piece of metal from the ground and knocked its surface lightly. The noise it gave off almost made Flandre jump. Sha had only knocked it slightly and yet it boomed as if she had punched it. In that silence even a whisper would have sounded like a shout so it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise. Flandre backed away from the cylinder a little and dropped the piece of metal she was holding.

"It is hollow...," Flandre uttered, the echoes of her voice now joining the still echoing klang that the knocking of the metal against metal had created. Flandre stared at the pipe for a second before increaisng the intensity of the flame on her hand. As the light got stronger it revealed more and more of the ground around Flandre which suddenly didn't seem all too plain anymore. There were many dented trails on the ground most were as large as the cave she had walked through to get here, others were smaller. And in the midst of them there were clear, huge footprints. Flandre had to take a step back just to take it all in.

"Walkers...," Flandre uttered when she realized what had caused those trails on the ground. The area around her was in fact riddled with those trails. But one curious thing she noticed was that the trails all semeed to spread the fruther away they went. So instinctually she started following the trails backwards to where they had come from. As she turned her flame revealed more and more of those pipes. Most of them being even larger than the one next to which she was standing. When she had turned almost complete one hundred and eighty degrees all of the trails had conjoined into one massive and deep path leading to...

Flandre wasn't going to believe her eyes. She in fact fell to her butt in amazement when she saw the absolutely humongous circular... thing. She could only assume it was some kind of a door because that one big path from which all other tracks seemed to be portruding from lead to that circular thing... on the wall. As Flandre looked around she realized that that circular door was built onto the side of a wall of this massive cavern. She then quickly glanced backwards toward the tracks leading away from it.

"Just where do all these paths lead?" She uttered her amazement echoing in the cavern together with her voice.

"Well what do you think? Everywhere," Flandre suddenly heard a voice say. It was an awfully familiar voice. One that she had thought she wouldn't hear again. It was her own voice. She glanced around herself quickly but saw no one.

"Wh- where are you. Is that you...? From before?" Flandre asked doubtfully. The last time she had seen her reflection in a mirror. Now she didn't see it anywhere. Not even on the surface of those brass pipes.

"What do you mean before? I've been with you the whole time, remember? You took me with you, and so I've been waiting you here," The voice said again making Flandre spin around again in confusion. She then remembered the piece of mirror she had pocketed. She fumbled through her pocket hastily until her hand touched the hard edge of the piece of the mirror. She then pulled it out and looked at it in the light of her flame. There it was. The reflection was staring back at her.

"But you weren't there when I woke up from that tunnel?" Flandre uttered while looking at the reflection before her eyes. She was not sure if she should trust it or not.

"Like I said, I am what you think I am. Back then you were convinced that I was your imagination," The reflection said and shook its head a little.

"And now you aren't?" Flandre asked and squinted her eyes doubtfully.

"Are we going to have this conversation again? Listen, what should matter now is that you've actually made progress. That watch you have, it has to serve as a catalyst in all of this. Remember when Koishi said that she was going to head to the outside world as well and she had the watch? That must be how she could navigate here," The reflection said with sudden enthusiasm in its tone. Flandre stared at it silently.

"So... what now?" Flandre finally asked after a brief silence between them.

"What now is that we gotta get through that thing," The reflection said and pointed toward the massive door-looking thing on the wall of the cavern.

"As you have probably already noticed all those tracks lead back to it. The walkers must come from here. So who ever or what ever is creating them must be there," The reflection continued and stared at Flandre.

"Well, it doesn't seem like there's other way forward. Let's crack it open," Flandre respoded and shrugged her shoulder. She was just about to start heading for the door and redying herself to bust it open when she was stopped by the voice.

"Hold on! If you force it open, your cover will surely be blown. Let's wait and hide for a bit, let's try to slip in unnoticed," The reflection almost yelled. Flandre then stopped and looked down toward it in the mirror. It was pointing to the side of the door where there was a small pile of rubble created by the tracks leading away from the door. If Flandre were to hide behind it she should be invisible to anyone or anything that would come out from the door. She then nodded and headed for the pile instead of the door. As Flandre dove behind the pile of junk she finally realized that the constant slight breeze from before hadn't actually disappeared but instead could now finally be felt again when she was laying on the ground behind the pile. She checked what she was laying on just to be sure but when she didn't see anything out of the ordinary she started to realize that the breeze was in fact coming from within the ground.

"That's odd...," Flandre muttered while staring at the ground where she could feel the breeze pressing against her body as she was laying there and blocking the path of some of that air.

"What is?" She heard the reflection asking curiously.

"The ground, air is coming from it," Flandre responded while fumbling around with her hand trying to feel if it only came from one spot or if it came from everywhere. Every spot she tried was emitting that slight breeze. She then looked around herself and her gaze was drawn back to those pipes portruding from the ground.

"Those pipes... hmmm," Flandre mumbled thoughtfully.

"Hmm? Did you count them?" The reflection asked as a response.

"What? No. I'm just wondering, what purpose do they have. We should probably check them out a little better," Flandre said and was just about to stand up when the reflection interrupted her, "Stay put! Let's just wait!" Flandre stopped for a moment, slightly annoyed and was just about pull out the piece of mirror when she started feel a slight rumble from the ground.

"What's that!?" Flandre exclaimed.

"Get down, I think this might be our way in," The reflction simply responded. Flandre took a second to think about what to do but once one of the pipes let out a violent hiss she thought better of it and duck back behind the pile. One after another more of those pipes started giving out hisses and whistles as if the pressure within them was suddenly starting to pile up. The echoes around the cave were starting to become deafening as metallic screeching and clacking coming from the door was joining the crescendo of chaotic sounds. Flandre glanced at the direction of the door just before the first pipe started pushing out hot steam and air with such force that the roar was equivalent to a jet engine. Flandre covered her ears as more pipes joined into the symphony. The door then started to clack open slowly. The metal plates covering it moving outwards in spiraling motion allowing an orange light seep through and illuminate the dark cavern. Flandre extinguished her flame, partially because she needed her hands to cover her ears and partially because it was no longer needed to see around. What she would have now needed to see around were sunglasses because the sudden light released from behind the door was quite blinding. Flandre braced herself as the door was near fully opened and she could barely make out a massive shadow appearing behind it accompanied with another metallic screech. This one however wasn't like the screech the door let out, this one was purposeful and menacing. Like a roar of a lion. The door then made one final loud clunck indicating that it was now fully open. Flandre was just about to spring to her feet and make a run for it when she was knocked from her feet by a sudden gush of hot steam now rushing out and up from the ground. The pipes had stopped releasing the air and it was now rushing from the ground. Had the gush of air been any stronger she had been flung into the air by the force. Flandre had to hold her breath so the hot steam wouldn't scorch her lungs.

As Flandre braced herself on the ground the shadow that had appeared behind the door started moving forward with thunderous footsteps shaking the bottom of the cave as it made its way through the door letting out yet another metallic screech. As Flandre glanced at it she could just barely see a blue glow coming and going out of view as the steam hindered her vision. The steam made it impossible for Flandre to see the walker that had just emerged through the door but on the other hand it hid Flandre from the walker as well. Although the experience was thoroughly unpleasant.

The earth shook under each step the walker took indicating that it wasn't a worm-like walker nor moving on wheels. Flandre's thoughts were however drawn back to the matter at hand again when the steam gushing from the ground started to die down and Flandre could breathe somewhat normally again. But this was clearly not the end of it. As the steam gushing from ground started to decrease the pipes started to hiss and whistle again which was soon followed by the metallic clacking of the door.

"Hurry! Now," She could barely make out from under all that noise and tinnitus that was messing with her ears. Flandre groaned as she pushed herself onto her feet with her balance completely gone because of the deafening noise. She stumbled few steps forward until she took flight to reach the door that was closing again slowly. The plates were spiraling back to their places. It was hard for Flandre to keep flying straight but she managed to steer herself well enough that she could grab the edge of the ever doorway as she rammed face first into it.

"Aowww," Flandre whimpered as she hold onto the plate with her other hand and her forehead with her other.

"Come on, climb through, you can whimper later," The reflection insisted anxiously as the doorway was already halfway closed. Flandre simply groaned in response as she grabbed the edge of the doorway with her other hand as well and pulled herself up. When she got her other foot to the edge of the plate as well a simple kick and a roll made sure she would get through the door and drop to the other side. Flandre covered her eyes as the orange glow was now everywhere as she fell to the other side of the massive circular door. As she smacked back first onto hard ground the door made its last clacking before shutting completely with loud clunck.

"Well, that was more hectic than I thought," The reflection finally uttered as Flandre was laying on the ground holding her ears and panting a little.

"Owwwww, my ears," Flandre whimpered and kept her eyes shut due to the brightness.

"You better get a move on before we're spotted. Remeber, this is the enemy's territory now. At least get somewhere more sceluded instead of laying here on the open," The reflection retorted to which Flandre just groaned. Flandre's chest was hurting again along with her back. Falling to solid ground with still healing ribs wasn't a pleasant feeling. Despite this Flandre flipped herself over to all fours and opened here eyes a little so that she could at least find a good initial hiding spot. She appeared to be on some big, solid, metal platform with what looked like some sort of a moving platform in the middle. A quick glance also revealed that on the side of the platform there many limb-looking metal... thingies. That's the best way Flandre could describe them to herself in her mind. She had never seen anything like it. But even if they were alien to her they still had many shadowy spaces between them, large enough for her to crawl in and probably hide in.

Without wasting anymore time Flandre made a dash for it, practically diving into the small space between the machinery. In the dark she could finally open her eyes properly and allow them to get used to the new lighting, something that the cavern hadn't had to offer.

"Phew, okay, now we're safe," The reflection uttered with releived tone as Flandre tried to fit better into the small space she had forced herself into.

"Care to tell me where the hell are we? What is this place?" Flandre huffed as she tried to turn herself into a more comfortable position.

"I don't yet know. We have to scout this place out before I can say for sure," The reflection responded. Flandre on the other hand just groaned and caressed her ears.

"We should probably get a move on. The sooner we figure all this out the better," The reflection continued which Flandre tried to block out by blocking her ears.

"I don't want to. I'm tired and hurt. Let me rest for a moment," She whined and pressed her chin to her chest as if she was trying to curl into a fetal position. Her session was cut short however by a loud _**CA-CHUNK **_which was followed by the machinery around her starting to move. Flandre could only sigh in frustration as she started crawling forward again to now get out from that space she had just gotten herself into.

"Just give me a goddamned break," She deplored as she made her way through the machinery to they other side where she could see light pouring into the shadows. Flandre didn't bother to make sure onto what she was falling to when she kicked herself out from that small space to the other side of the machines.

Flandre fell to another platform with a shoft thump as she popped her way out of the small space between the machinery. She once again just laid on the floor for a moment annoyed by the fact that she couldn't go anywhere and just rest for a while without being forced to get moving way too soon. She just wanted to lay there for a while now when she could finally find a surface that wasn't covered in rubble.

"Wait, the surface is clean?" Flandre suddenly uttered and opened her eyes. Though she had to squint immediately because she had not yet gotten used to the brightness. Despite this she could see enough to realize that the surface she was laying on was made of plain metal. She looked around a little. If there had been walls around her it would have looked like some kind of a warehouse. There was junk around but it was all neatly organized and it seemed like none of it was random. There were many units of machine parts, barrels and such. Not the chaotic mess of junk like she had seen so far. She then pushed herself onto her feet while shielding her eyes a little with her palm. To her right there seemed to be an opening with a guard rail on the edge of the platform. She started making her way toward it in the hopes of making some sense of where she was.

Her hopes of finding out where she was however were soon obscured by amazement and some amount of confusion as well, because once she reached the guard rail she had to grasp it tightly so that she wouldn't fall to her butt. Before her eyes opened a cavern, the size of which was out of this world. And the bright glow that had made her eyes hurt before, now she understood where it all came from, along with the heat. The whole cavern was half filled with what looked like lava, it was like the Hell of Blazing Fires, but bigger. She couldn't even see the other side of the cavern before it was obscured by the blazing horizon. But what truly set it apart from the Hell of Blazing fires was what could be seen above the scorching sea. Machinery. All kinds she had never seen or even dreamed before. Walkways crisscrossing over the boiling lake, strange metal spires rising from it. Some were even large enough to be mistaken for buildings. There were also huge amounts of tracks that those arm-like machines used to move around the cavern it seemed. She figured this out by watching one whirl by just under here where there was one of these tracks. There was also many bigger, long platforms, one of which Flandre saw lead straight to that door that she used to get in. On those platforms were what seemed like unfinished walkers.

"They... they build walkers here... Dozens... hundreds of them," Flandre managed to utter in awe as her eyes darted around to take it all in. A fair distance away, there was also one larger building reaching all the way from the surface of the molten lake to the top of the cavern. It was also much wider in scope than the other spires that rose from the lake below.

"Just... how large is this place...?" Flandre muttered in amazement while looking at the structures around the cave as they wavered in ripples in the air caused by the scrorching heat rising from below.

"I don't know... maybe endless. Maybe this is what exists below the surface. Maybe this is what causes the heat to rise from that chasm you described," The reflection responded sounding as amazed as Flandre.

"Endless...," Flandre repeated with spaced out look on her face.

"But... how, how can this place exist? Where is everyone? I don't see anybody maintaining it or controlling the... machines," Flandre then uttered after taking in the view before her eyes for a moment.

"Maybe the machines take care of it themselves? Remember, the walkers were empty from the inside, there was no one controlling them," The reflection responded. Flandre leaned a little over the guard rail to see better around but still saw no one living around.

"But someone still had to build the first machine. It cannot pop out from nothing, can it?" Flandre insisted while looking around.

"I don't know. Maybe they can? Mayb- Watch out," The reflection suddenly exclaimed as slight humming sound became audible. Flandre glanced at the direction of the sound and saw some kind of small flying machine approaching her. It had four rapidly moving insect-like wings, a body crudely shaped like that of a bird and one blue light aimed right at her direction which she guessed was its eye. Flandre quickly glanced around and decided to duck under one of those stacks of organized metal parts. As Flandre leaned against the stack she hoped that the strange thing hadn't seen her. She didn't believe it could hurt her but she didn't want to be found. Especially when cosnidering that the place she was in was most likely an enemy territory. Her thoughts were interrupted however when she noticed a blue light flickering through the gaps that the stack of metal bits had. She heard the humming that the small flying metal bird made as it circled curiously around the stack. Flandre guessed that it knew that she was hiding there. And when the thing circled to the other side of the stack and locked its gaze toward Flandre her guess became confirmed. She just stared at the thing as it howered still in the air letting out couple beeps and that constant humming. Flandre blinked few times curiously while staring at the thing. It didn't seem harmful, or at least it hadn't tried to harm her yet. The metal bird-thing then made few circles around Flandre, seemingly examining her from all angles before returning to face her from the front. Flandre even chuckled a bit. It didn't seem hostile at all.

"You're cute," Flandre uttered and extended her arm toward the flying machine.

"Destroy it," Flandre then suddenly heard the reflection say.

"What!?" She exclaimed in surprised and glanced at her pocket where she saw the crude outline of the piece of mirror pressing against the fabric of her dress.

"You heard me, destroy it. It cannot be up to any good," The reflection repeated itself as Flandre glanced back at the flying machine that still curiously stared at her.

"Look at it, it doesn't seem to mean us any harm," Flandre insisted and reached to touch the flaying machine. It recoiled a bit once Flandre reached for it.

"Of course it doesn't harm us, because it can't. It'll just reveal us to the real threats. Destroy it, before our cover is blown," The reflection retorted hatily. Flandre glanced at her pocket once more and then back at the flying machine. The reflection was right. This thing was most likely made by the enemy, so not getting rid of it was most likely a bad choice.

"Sorry about this," Flandre then sighed and with a swift hand motion grabbed the flying machine from the air and squeezed it without hesitation so that it practically exploded into two parts. Sparks flew as the two parts fell to the ground and the blue light flickered and the shut down completely from its eye. Flandre stared at it for a moment.

"At least it didn't show any emotion," Flandre sighed again and stood up from the ground where she had leaned against the stack of parts. She glanced at the remains of the machine she had just destroyed before turning back toward the ledge and the guard rail where she could see the rest of the cavern.

"Okay, so what do we do now?" Flandre asked as she walked toward the ledge.

"We gotta find the architect of this place. And what do you bet that we find them from that big building over there?" The reflection responded without hesitation. Flandre's gaze was drawn towards the bigger spire she had seen earlier. The one that reached all the way to the ceiling. The reflection was true. It certainly looked the most promising place to start looking.

"Just make sure you try to be as subtle as possible. We don't want any unnecessary attention," The reflection added and Flandre simple nodded as a response.

A quick glance downwards revealed the rail going under the ledge on which she had seen one of those arm-machines whirl past earlier. Those machines presumably used those rails to move around quite frequently. Flandre hopped down from the ledge and grabbed the rail. She didn't want to fly straight to the building and risk being spotted. She pulled herself up and balanced herself onto the rail. She saw that one of those machines was coming toward her location along that rail. She decided that she would hitch a quick ride. As the machine got closer Flandre prepared herself and when it was close enough she jumped and grabbed a hold onto that metal arm. It took a moment for her to balance herself but once she did and was sure she wouldn't fall she started inspecting the arm-like machine. It didn't seem to react to her presence what so ever. It also didn't have any lights on it.

"Maybe it is blind?" Flandre muttered to herself as they whiz past the walkways, platforms and other rails in the cavern. Flandre made always sure that she was behind the arm-machine when looked from the center of the cavern. She thought that it would be the safest that way and she would be mostly hidden. The arm continued to move along the rail for a while until it finally slowed down and stopped along of the larger blatforms where there were many other similiar machines apparently working on a incomplete walker. Flandre looked around herself nervously but was forced to get moving when the machine she had been holding onto started moving toward the platfrom and the other machines. She had to let go. She decided to jump onto the platform and dash between the six legs of that walker to the other side of the large platform where she saw a walkway. Once on the walkway and sure she wasn't in immediate danger she duck a little because the walkway had a solid fence on its both sides meaning that you couldn't see through it and that when laying low she would be mostly hidden. Flandre took a moment catch her breath and then peeked slightly from behind the fence. She wanted to see where exactly she would have to go now.

A quick peak revealed that she was getting closer to that spire. The walkway would take her a little bit further until she would come across another rail that would take her to yet another large assembly platform from where it would be basically a straight shot to the spire. Flandre smirked confidently now when she had a solid plan about her approached but her smirk was soon wiped from her face when a familiar hum could be heard again. She pulled herself down quickly and laid silently and motionlessly on the walk way, hoping that the fences would hide her. From the corner of her eyes she could see one of those flying machines flying literally just above her but luckily it didn't seem to look downwards. Once it had passed her she could finally sigh for a relief and get up from the walk way again. She didn't want to risk it so she didn't stand straight up but descended onto all fours and started crawling toward the spot where she would have to jump onto the rail. While she crawled she had to stop occasionally because one of those small flying machines flew over her and she didn't want to risk being spotted. Each time the machine just flew over her without giving Flandre any attention. She took this as a sign that she had gone unnoticed and continued crawling the same way until she reached the point where she had planned to jump onto the rail. Flandre peeked over the fence of the walkway to make sure she was on the right spot. When she was certain of it she quickly rolled over the fence flew under it. There weren't any of those machines currently coming her way on the rail so she wanted to wait for one in a relatively good hiding spot. She also wanted to be flying because the rail was a little too far away to be jumped onto. Once a machine that she could use to hide herself along that rail would come, she would make a quick dash for it.

She actually had to wait for a one for a fair bit but eventually one came and she immediately went for it. She did exactly the same as the last time. Grabbing onto the machine, balancing herself and then shielding herself with it to hide her form from potential eyes that could be watching. It was a short way from there to the larger platform that would lead directly to the large spire so it didn't take long until the machine started slowing down on the rail. This whole time Flandre hadn't received any attention from any machine she had come across so it truly seemed that she had gone unnoticed thus far. The platform she was now stepping onto seemed to be larger than the other she had seen so far and wasn't really lined with those arm-machines like the rest. This one had many rails going along its side that split into multiple new rails all of which lead under the platform and toward the large spire Flandre was heading toward too. There were couple of those arm-like machines going back and forth but none had stopped along the platfrom. Flandre however didn't want to follow the machine for too long and before it could dip below the platform Flandre jumped off and landed onto the platform she had tried to get to from the beginning.

Once on her feet again Flandre glanced quickly around herself. On this platform there didn't seem to be any cover to hide behind so if she wanted to remain unseen she would probably need to move quickly.

"Alright, we're here now. Do we continue with the plan and head in or have you gotten any new ideas," Flandre asked hastily before taking any further steps.

"Just head for the building. Who ever has built this place will most likely be found from there. After we find them we'll see how we deal with them," The reflection responded after which Flandre started skittering toward the building. She tried to remain as low as she could. But if someone were to even glance at her general direction it would have been painfully obvious what she was doing and she wasn't going to be hidden from anyone. As Flandre ran toward the spire she kept glancing around her to see if any of those flying machines were in her immediate vicinity but all she saw were those larger machine moving back and forth along the rails beside her. It was as if no one even cared if she was there or not. Or that she was given the false sense of security. That may indeed have been the case because when one fo those arm-machines grabbed her leg it came from absolutely nowhere to her and it took her a moment to actually realize what happened as it dangled her upside down in its grip.

"What the hell!? Let go of me!?" Flandre yelled when she finally realized what had grabbed her and tried to kick herself free with her remaining free leg but the machine grip was firm. She then conjured up a fireball and blasted the machine with it and that was more than enough to release her from its grip. The fireball blew the machine in two derailing it and making it fall into the molten lake below with shoft _**sblurg **_as it hit its surface. Flandre herself fell back onto the platform with the hand part of the machine still wrapped around her ancle.

"What was that all about!?" Flandre rasped out as she grabbed the metal piece around her ancle started forcing it open.

"You shouldn't have let that flying machine watch you for that long earlier back there. Our cover might already be blown," The reflection responded as the metal around Flandre's leg started to bend slowly.

"Telling that now is useless," Flandre huffed as the metal piece finally gave away and snapped in half releasing her ancle. She then took the pieces and threw them into the lake below them. She intended to stand up and continue quickly to the building before something else would happen but when Flandre gave a brief glance to her surroundings she stopped. Every machine that had been moving on the rails beside her had stopped and were now facing toward her. Completely motionless. Flandre blinked twice and looked to the other side of the platform. It was the same thing there as well. Every machine had stopped. And it was quiet. The machines moving back and forth had made a fair bit of noise but now the only noise came from the boiling lake below.

"What is going on?" Flandre whispered the question as in not to provoke the machines any further. Flandre stared at them with confused and a little frightened look on her face as she stood up slowly back onto her feet.

"They all stopped," The reflection simply uttered.

"You don't say. But why?" Flandre retorted with annoyed tone while looking around herself. She then took few careful steps toward the building she was headed for in the first place but stopped when all of the machines turned to follow her movement.

"Okay, that's unsettling," Flandre uttered blankly while staring at the silent army of machine around her.

"Unsettling!? I would call it impressive," Flandre then heard being yelled. This took her off guard because the only other voice she had heard in a while was her own voice spoken by the reflection. She glanced around to see where the voice came from but before she could locate the source the voice spoke again, "Why you act so nervous? Shouldn't you be happy after meeting an old friend?" This time Flandre glanced upwards and finally saw a person standing on a balcony of sorts portruding from the spire she had been heading for. The person was standing so far away from her so that she had no idea who it could be. Their voice was unfamiliar to her as well but she could tell it was a woman. She then watched how the person took few steps forward and lept into the air blue flames igniting from her palms and feet. They then howered toward Flandre gracefully, yet it was oddly mechanical. Flandre watched as this weirdo approached her and finally landed about ten meters away from her. She landed with a heavy clunk and did something Flandre was not absolutely not expecting. She bowed to her.

"Welcome, to my kingdom," The person said with smirk on their face. Now when they were closer Flandre could finally take a better look at who she was speaking to. The person was rather short, only a slightly taller than her. They had a paleish red hair tied to a two pigtails but what caught her eye the most was the fact that they were completely covered in a yellow and grey armor of sorts. The only parts visible of her actual body were her nose and everything of her face below it and a portion of the back of her head from where her hair was visible. Her fingers were covered by this armor as well, hell even her eyes were covered. Flandre was baffled by this person. Who was she, why was she acting like that, and what was the armor for.

"Uhhhh, thanks? But, uh, who are you again?" Flandre asked with uncomfortable tone and look on her face. The person in front of her then glanced at her. Well, glancing would be a wrong word because Flandre still couldn't see her eyes, only this mask she was wearing over them. She was more just tilting her head toward Flandre as she slowly straightened up from her bow. She stared at Flandre for a good moment with an experssion on her face that Flandre couldn't read.

"Funny you should ask...," The person finally uttered and chuckled a bit while covering their mouth as if she was some fine lady. Flandre just tilted her head in confusion.

"Now then, what do you say? Are you impressed?" The person suddenly asked. Flandre tilted her head again.

"Impressed? By what?" Flandre asked with still utterly confused tone. To which the person simply responded by laughing.

"By my work, my domain of course! Everything you see around you I have made with my own two hands," The weirdo laughed with a flamboyant tone and a smirk on her face as she streched her arms to her side and span around like signing Flandre to take a look around herself. Flandre did so and saw how more machines had gathered around them. Those flying machines had gathered into the air as well and she could even see few live walkers staring at them from the distant platforms all around them.

"Look at them, I made them all just for you," The person then added when Flandre was done looking around herself. She looked at the weirdo confused.

"Uhhh, thanks. But why. I mean no offense but I don't even know you," Flandre finally managed to stutter with still rather confused look on her face. The person then suddenly snapped her face back toward Flandre so fast that it should have broken her neck. She then started taking heavy and determined steps towards Flandre, each of them eachoing from the metal surface of the platform they were standing on. _**Clank, clank, clank.**_

"Don't you now? Well, maybe I should refresh your memory a little," The person then almost hissed with much more hostile tone once they had stopped only few meters away from Flandre. Flandre had backed away a step herself as she had watched this weirdo approach her. She now looked how that girl brought her arm to the side of her head and pressed some button on her mask. Flandre looked how the mask started moving and slowly revealed the eyes of that person. Or what was left of them. Flandre had seen many gruesome things but something about this one was more unsettling than anything she had seen. From beneath the mask came into view a patch of singed skin, like it had been burned away. And where the eyes _should _have been there were now only two gaping sockets inside which Flandre could see some kind of machinery. When she looked closer she noticed that inside of that mask seemed to have some kind of protrusions that seem to align with the eye sockets. They were in a sense like plugs.

Flandre recoiled at the sight of this. The two empty holes staring lifelessly at her. The weirdo then laughed and pushed the same button again and the mask slided back onto its place hiding the gruesome image behind itself again. The girl then smirked like Flandre's reaction pleased her.

"Losing one's sight is troublesome but it helped me as a catalyst to my resolve. I fumbled blindly for so long until I finally managed to regain my vision. And from there, all this you see around you was like a cakewalk," The girl said and looked around her once again. Flandre then took a one step backwards once again.

"L- look, I don't really know what your goal is with all this but clearly you've mistaken something. I don't even know you. We haven't even met before. You must have mistaken me for someone else," Flandre insisted with uncomfortable and confused look on her face. The girl stopped then and turned her face toward Flandre. She stared at her for a long, silent while.

"So that's how it is?" The girl then uttered, barely loudly enough for Flandre to even hear her. Flandre stared at her silently, she had started to fear a little bit what she would hear next because this weirdo seemed so adamant that they knew each other. The girl's posture then changed in an instant to more imposing one as she took few heavy strides toward Flandre stopping mere inches away from her face.

"So killing a whole race of people and ruining a life while you're at it is something so insignificant that you can just forget about it!?" The girl suddenly exploded with such fury that Flandre had to back away again.

"W- what? I- I swear I don't know what you're talking about," Flandre responded hastily which was met only with more anger, "Then let's see if names can refresh your pathetic tiny memory! Does the name Mitori ring any bells!? A frightened girl, all alone in an empty village, scared, not knowing where her ma' and pa' had disappeared? DOES IT RING ANYTHING WITHIN YOU!?" Flandre stopped dead on her tracks and just stared at the girl in front of her. A girl that claimed to be Mitori. The kappa girl she had seen in the deserted kappa village before she appeared in this timeline.

"What? ...Impossible," Flandre managed to stutter before stumbling and falling to her butt onto the metal platform.

"Why's that? Should I be dead as well? Was that your goal!?" Mitori growled with even more furious tone.

"What happened? That event should never have happened. The timeline got fixed," Flandre blurted hastily with utter confusion filling her tone and the look on her face as she fumbled to get up again.

"Look around yourself! Does this look like it's FUCKING FIXED to you!?" Mitori practically screamed at Flandre as she gathered herself from the ground and stood up slowly again. Mitori on the other hand started pacing back and forth in front of Flandre.

"When I woke up again after falling asleep to your _sweet, sweet tale_, the first thing I did was to look for my ma' and pa', but would you know it everyone was still gone. And so I did what any other scared little girl would do. I looked further. But what I found was only destruction. Burning forest, corpses all around. It was hell on earth. But even then I refused to give up. Ma' and pa' just had to be out there somewhere," Mitori said with audible agony in her voice. She then stopped and turned her head back towards Flandre.

"And soon enough, I found my answers. I found what you had done. I found that shrine maiden from an opening in the forest, clutching her knees, rocking back and forth, chanting that it will be alright, it'll be alright. It was then that I knew that it wouldn't be alright. That everything had gone to shit. It took a long while but I managed to get that shrine maiden to spill the beans. About what had occurred. About what had happened to my ma' and pa'. How you had promised that you would fix it all. And from her eyes I knew that even she had lost her faith in you. She knew that you had lied to all of us. You had only escaped yourself, saved your sorry hide and left us to rot into the hell hole you had created. What you had done could not be fixed," Mitori growled like a wolf that was just moment away from attacking its prey. She then continued pacing back and forth.

"I was, let's say, rather mad so I granted her the only mercy I could. I smashed her head in with a rock and pushed her into the river," Mitori said and came to an abrubt stop.

"I however didn't see that bloodsucker melt into the water. A shrine maiden turned youkai is the only sin greater than a human turning into a youkai. And knowing that, any self respecting shrine maiden would have ended themselves had that happened to them. But not Reimu. She was so afraid to die that she fought back. Can you imagine?" Mitori asked like it wa sthe most baffling question ever.

"She!? Fought back!? A shrine maiden who had broken every rule set out for her. Who had sinned beyond the deepest reaches of hell. She, who's only redemption was to end themselves, fought back? It's a really interesting when you see what people are truly like," Mitori continued and Flandre could swear she could see a quick smirk appear and disappear on Mitori's face.

"As I smashed her head and tried to push her she tried to stop me by grabbing hold onto a tree. She only managed to snap a branch but with that burning branch she hit me to my face," Mitori stopped again and brought her hand to her face and slightly caressed the surface of the mask covering her eye sockets.

"As I heard her scream her last my vision darkened. I writhed in agony, scrambling toward the sound of flowing water trying to put out the flames but even when I sank my head beneath the surface the burning didn't stop. Do you know what _that_ fire does to a person? It doesn't only singe your skin. It deforms your very being. Flesh eaten by those fires can never be regenerated," Mitori hissed while staring at Flandre with her non existent eyes. Flandre simply stared back at her silently. She didn't know how to respond. She had put all that to the back of her mind because she had thought that all that had been fixed. She had thought that by going back in time and killing Marisa had saved all those people her actions had killed.

"O- oh my god. M- Mitori I'm so sor-," Flandre tried to apologize even if she knew that nothing she could ever say could never bring those people back.

"Oh I know how sorry you are, and how sorry you'll be. As the you played god, the sand castle around you started to collapse. You have more enemies than you think. So when I was approached by Koishi for the first time, offering me a chance for revenge I took that chance without a second thought. My end of the bargain was just to put that accursed watch back into shape and monitor the outside world with my creations. A small price to pay just to see you pay for your crimes and get my family back," Mitori hissed with accusatory tone and pointed her finger at Flandre. Flandre gulped and backed away a one step more.

"Listen, this is not worth it. What you people are doing is destroying the whole world," Flandre finally retorted with desperate tone and look on her face.

"You're wrong, it will destroy the whole reality, and it isn't even our doing. It's yours," Mitori responded while shaking her head and bursting out into wild laughter. Flandre backed away two more steps.

"So what now? You're just going to kill me?" Flandre asked and forced a nervous grin.

"No," Mitori responded and stopped laughing, "I'll just let my creations do it for me." After that Mitori lept into the air followed by those blue flames bursting from her feet and palms. Flandre stared as she flew backwards toward the building she had appeared from in the first place.

"Oh yeah, wanna know what those large robots that I send above ground are called?" Mitori yelled with mocking tone. Flandre just stared at her her face twisting into a frown.

"They're Oni slayers. Made especially for your... friends. Also brilliant tool to keep my eye on you," Mitori laughed as she flew back towards the building. Flandre glared at her. At first she had felt sorry for her but now when she had shown her true face she felt nothing but hatred. While she may have been the cause of Mitori's current state it was still Mitori herself who had chosen to walk this path and now it would befall to Flandre to end that path. That would be the least she could do to her.

"Mitori," Flandre yelled after her and was just about start running toward her when one of the walkers on the other platforms shot a beam in front of Flandre, shaking the platform and throwing her off balance. The arm-like machines around Flandre then started moving, attempting to catch Flandre. One of them managed to scrape Flandre's foot but she just turned around and blasted the machine to bits. She then turned her attention back toward the building where Mitori had headed. She intended to fly after her but now more of those walkers from other platforms joined the first one and they all started firing at her. Flandre made the split second decision to leap into the air before the platform she was on got blasted again. Flandre was thrown back by the shockwave as the beams exploded upon hitting the platform and as she flew backward hitting one of those rails she could see pieces of that platform falling into the molten mass below.

"Is she crazy? She's destroying her own creations," Flandre groaned as she hung from the rail she had hit.

"Does it matter!? Go after her, she may have answers for us," The reflection yelled back at her. Flandre knew this and had the full intention to do so. She quickly flipped onto the rail and balanced herself. The walkers then had already turned their attention back to her and were about to fire again. Flandre then charged two shots and aimed them at two different walkers. She threw the beams of her own, the other hitting its mark and the other hitting the other walker to its leg, throwing it off balance. Both seemed to be disoriented a little preventing them from firing back immediately. She then took flight before the other walkers could start firing at her. One of them fired but hit the rail Flandre had just stood on blowing it up with ease. The other walkers shot as well but all missed her, although just barely. Flandre then dived back toward the now smoking and partially destroyed platform. Not to land on it but to use the machines there as cover from the shots of the walkers. The smoke as well would hide her form pretty well. The arm-like machines seemed mostly destroyed by the initial explosion and those that weren't seemed really disoriented. Some spinning in circles and some pacing back and worth. Some were even blaring out some obnoxious sound. This was perfect cover for Flandre as she made a dash for the building. The walkers on the other hand upon losing their visual to Flandre started firing blindly into the smoke and chaos on the platform blowing up even more of it and making pieces of it drop into the molten lake below. Some walkers even started making their way toward the building themselves as few stayed behind and kept firing blindly.

A small taget would be next to impossible to see from all that chaos but a one could easily see the walkers from within it. From the smoke and fires Flandre threw one beam toward one of the walkers that had stayed behind to try and hit her. Her beam however wasn't meant to hit it directly but rather the platform it was staying on. As her own beam hit the platform it blew up one of the supporting beams that held it up, shaking it violently. But it wasn't enough to make it collapse yet. The walker shot few blind shots as it was trying to recover its balance. One of the shots accidentally hit the very platform it was standing on destroying more of its structures. The platform creaked and cracked under the weight of the walker as it tried to recover its balance and finally gave in under the pressure casting the walker down into the lake below. Flandre didn't see it sink into the lake from the smoke but the sounds she heard confirmed what had happened. She then turned her attention back toward the central spire and continued her charge. At the moment there was only one walker left firing at the building, the others had started to head for it themselves in order to find a better firing spot. This made it easier for Flandre to charge through the half destroyed platform. She cut her way through the machines left on the platform while dodging the few explosions the last firing walker caused.

It was a rather straight shaft to the building from there and Flandre cleared her way through the mostly destroyed platform with ease. At the end of the platform where it connected to the spire there was an opening in the building and Flandre headed straight through it. She could feel and hear the one remaining walker still firing and its beams hitting the blatform and the building as Flandre dashed in. Once inside and sure that she was out from the line of sight of the walker she stopped and looked around herself for a moment. The insides of the building were rather spacious. Where the pltaform connected to the building there seemed to continue a straigth pathway deeper inside to the spire lined up with all sorts of machine Flandre hadn't seen outside. In the middle of the spire there seemed to be a shaft reaching all the way from the bottom to the very top of the building, where ever that might have been. The shaft was so high that Flandre couldn't even see where it lead. It had also become rather quiet. She could still hear the heavy steps of those walkers walking outside the spire apparently trying to get a visual on her so they could continue their barrage. Flandre walked deeper into the spire keeping her eye on her surroundings. She noticed that there seemed to be many levels to this spire as she could see rather well the other levels when she looked up. They really weren't even levels. Rather they were individual platforms connecting to each other with pathways, stairs and pillars. There were also numerous large see-through pipes that apparently were transporting that same molten hot mass from the lake below up and down.

"Mitori! Come out, we don't have to fight," Flandre then yelled while looking around herself trying to find where Mitori had gone. It would be almost impossible to see her from where Flandre was due to all the confusing structures and moving machinery around her.

"Maybe so, but oh, I so want to," Mitori's voice could be heard echoing from the upper levels accompanied by a bone chilling cackle. Flandre then also heard few metallic clunks and after that a rumble that shook the very building. Flandre glanced up and saw huge masses of that glowing hot molten mass rushing down from the upper levels crushing everything on its path as it made its way down towards Flandre. Flandre yelped and took flight. She quickly flew to the other side of the spire and few levels higher where she figure she would be safe. She watched as the smouldering mass came crashing down onto the platform where she had just stood accompanied with a deafening splash and hisses as the mass started cooling down and the platform heating up. The glowing mass melt the machinery on its path and sent bits flying everywhere. Flandre was lucky she was fur away enough to be safe. The molten mass was hot enough that in managed to melt its way completely through the platform before it cooled down enough to solidify.

Flandre watched this from the platform that she had flown to in order to escape the impact. She then glance upwards again. Mitori was hiding somewhere in the upper levels and if Flandre didn't reach her she wouldn't stop sending everything she could onto Flandre. Flandre took flight again heading straight up this time.

"Good, you're still alive! I'd have been disappointed had you been simply crushed under molten metal! Let's see how long you can keep this up," Flandre heard Mitori's voice echoing somewhere above her. Flandre simply growled at Mitori's taunts as she continued her way up while readying her Lävatein. She was going to cut her way up if it required that. Little did she knew that Mitori's next attack didn't come from above this time.

As Flandre flew upwards dodging the pathways, pipes and platforms she suddenly heard Mitori's cackle again. Flandre slowed down expecting something to fall from above but instead she was met with explosions all around her. The walls were blown inwards and Flandre was thrown away from the closest wall she was next to. She fell couple levels down when she finally hit a smaller metal platform. Flandre groaned in pain as the explosions had first knocked the wind out from her and then she had fallen onto that platform face first. Her recently fractured ribs were screaming for her to give them a break but Flandre ignored the pain and pushed herself up. She looked upwards to see what had happened. The outside walls of the spire had mostly blown up and from those blown holes crawled in three walkers.

"Come on now, give me a break," Flandre huffed with pissed tone and look on her face as the walkers scanned their surroundings apparently trying to find her.

"Don't want my babies being dropped out just yet! Show'em some love, I created them just for you," Mitori's infuriating voice could be heard above. Flandre was fuming at this point. She felt no pity towards her anymore.

"You want some love!? Well let me give you some," Flandre screamed back and pointed her Lävatein upwards. It was then when the walkers turned their attention to her. A machine has no sense of fear or self preservation so as they saw how Flandre charged her blade all they saw was a target to be destroyed. Which ended up being the last thing they saw. Flandre unleashed a massive blast of energy easily filling the whole spire as it traveled upwards. Walkers that had just climed into the spire were blown clear, all three going up in crescendo of fire, smoke and explosions. Two fell out from the very holes they had blown up to get in and one fell into the depths of the spire. All of them in multiple pieces. Flandre's attack had not only destroyed the walkers but also most of the inside structures of the spire as well and even she was starting to feel its effects. The building, now when it had practically been cut in half by the explosions and Flandre's beam, was starting to lose it's balance. The lower half was starting tip over slightly. Flandre took this as her que to continue upwards before the spire would tip too much blocking her way to get further up and taking her down with her. Flandre took flight again, dodging few streams of molten metal surging downwards and an occasional piece of walkway or platform falling down as well. Her attack had decimated the most immediate levels it had come into contact with which hindered Flandre's way up but not too much to make it impossible.

As Flandre made her way out from the falling lower half of the spire up to the upper half that was still hanging firmly from the ceiling, she glanced down to take a look at the destruction down below. The building was slowly tipping over and making its way down to the brightly glowing lake below that apparently was molten metal. The lower half was ripping platforms, walkways and rails with it as it crumbled into the smouldering mass. Flandre then turned her attention back toward the upper levels of the spire. Mitori had been quiet after her attack. Maybe she was starting to become nervous.

"What's the matter!? Where's your bravado now!?" Flandre screamed as she made her way upwards. Her attack had done some substantial damage because as she flew up she didn't see any intact platforms or walkways anymore. Only remnants that were hanging from the walls of the spire. This went on for a fair bit with Mitori staying silent and Flandre continuing flying upwards just waiting for Mitori's next attack. While doing so Flandre glanced down one last time and found that she had gone so high up that the glow of the lake below was only a small dot, like a star in the sky. It was then when Flandre came across a sudden opening in the spire. The walls suddenly disappeared revealing a large room of sorts. She glanced up and saw that the shaft was still continuing upwards. Flandre decided to stop there and land to take look at the room. It seemed quite different from what she had seen earlier. It was rather dark but from what she could gather the ceiling, the walls and the floor were all smooth metal surface. There were also control panels scattered around reminding Flandre a little of Marisa's bunker she had seen a while back. It also reminded her of her visit to the Kappa Valley. The architecture was really similiar.

Looking around also revealed that there were few openings in the walls of that room from where she could see that familiar orange glow seeping in, indicating that they were still within that huge cavern and not in its ceiling. Flandre took few careful steps around. The room was in pristine condition. No crude machinery around, only control panels and few monitors, one of which seemed to be on. It was turned away from Flandre but it was clearly emitting light. Flandre glanced around herself once more to make sure Mitori was not around and then made her way to the monitor to see what it was showing. As she walked under the monitor and turned around to see the image it was portraying her stomach turned. She saw the wasteland above ground. The fields of rubble with that irritatingly smooth horizon. And above it hung the sphere, not moving, unchanging but ever glowing and looming over the scenery. But it wasn't that what made her stomach turn, it was what was scattered around the landscape. Faces, many familiar, many she didn't recognize, but it was all too easy to realize who they belonged to. The Oni. Innumerable corpses were scattered around the fields. Some bodies were mangled beyond recognition. Some were still somewhat recognizeable. But they all were as dead as a stone. Few walkers could be seen around the scenery as well.

"Oni slayers...," Flandre then uttered out loud remembering what Mitori had said just earlier before she had charged after her.

"Do you now see the scope of the madness that's occuring? How many lives are lost just because of you and your pointless cause to save one petty life?" Flandre then heard Mitori's voice echoing from the opposite side of the room, her shadown coming into view.

"You told me a story of your noble cause. How you were trying to save your friend. And it was to those words that I fell asleep and woke up to face reality. The reality that even you yourself don't see. That the longer you try to persist and push back the inevitable, the more lives will be lost for nothing," Mitori uttered with only coldness in her tone.

"I did not do that. I'm not the one who killed them," Flandre retorted and pointed at the monitor showing the horrifying image.

"Maybe so, but it is always because of you that people die. I'm just doing everyone a favor by killing you and ensuring that we can stop your madness," Mitori responded calmly and started approaching Flandre from the darkness.

"No, if it weren't for people like you no one would have had to die," Flandre retorted and pointed Lävatein at Mitori's approaching figure.

"And you still don't get it. What we do I just ensure that there's still some hope. Your actions will lead to the death of everyone. Want it or not," Mitori raised her voice a little. She was now so close that Flandre could see the glint from her armor and that she was carrying something.

"We? Everyone's talking about _**we**_, who else is with you!?" Flandre demanded but Mitori only chuckled.

"Oh how much I'd love to tell you. But I'm afraid that your heart would break," Mitori uttered and was clearly enjoying every second of it.

"QUIT WITH THE BULLS-," Was all Flandre could yell as she was about to step away from the light of the monitor to see Mitori better before a sudden light erupted from the object Mitori was carrying. Flandre felt immense pressure, heat and pain hitting her chest as she was thrown backwards across the room finally crashing onto a control panel and stumbling onto the floor.

"I've had my fill already. So yeah, let's quit with the bullshit," Mitori uttered as she threw away the gun she had been holding and grabbed something else from her back. It seemed similiar to the gun she had been holding before but it was longer and was apparently connected to a hose.

"As they say, wash away the stains of time," Mitori uttered as she came fully into Flandre's field of view. She didn't have to think for a second to realize what Mitori was holding. As a split second decision Flandre took her sword and directed a torrent of fire from the tip of Lävatein to somehow deflect the stream of water Mitori unleashed from her weapon. Flandre poured all her concentration to the Lävatein just to keep the flames hot enough that the water would evaporate before it could get into contact with her. She stood up painstakingly slowly making sure she did not let her spell slip up. Once back on her feet Flandre took a deep breah and quickly dashed away from Mitori's attack covered by the steam. With a quick slash she was able to make Mitori stumble back a little and force her to stop her attack. This gave Flandre time to approach her in attempt to land a second strike but as she tried to hit her Mitori just grabbed the balde of her sword with her hand, stopping it and then throwing Flandre back toward the control panel she had initially hit. Mitori then readied her water gun again and aimed it at Flandre but before she could fire Flandre turned into ball of light and quickly shot herself out of the way as Mitori unleashed the stream of water again. Flandre turned to her normal form again behind Mitori and was ready to try and strike her again only to find her convulsing bizarrely. In her haste to blast Flandre, Mitori hadn't realized that as she had thrown Flandre onto the control panel it had broke the circuits and now when she unleash the waters she herself was struck with electricity. Flandre looked at this for couple of seconds before she realized that it was her chance to disarm her. Flandre rushed to Mitori and cut the hose her weapon was connected to with a quick slash of Lävatein.

She came to regret that decision almost immediately as the now uninterrupted gush of water exploded from the cut hose spewing water uncontrollably everywhere. This also released Mitori as there was no more water coming from her weapon and she was no longer electrocuted. Freaked out by the sudden course of events Flandre turned into a bat to somewhat protect herself from the water the hose was spewing. Once Mitori realized what had happened she too took flight. Powered by her rockets she hovered above the now flooded floor in search of Flandre. It didn't take long for the water to ruin the curcuits of more machinery and control panels. And after only couple seconds all the power shut down from the room leaving them both in utter darkness.

Flandre stared at Mitori who was hovering motionless above ground looking around herself trying to locate her. Flandre started slowly scittering away from Mitori, trying to get toward the opening leading out of the room where the familiar orange glow could be seen.

"Where are you?" Mitori almost whispered as she slowly turned her head from side to side trying to spot any movement. The trickling of the water luckily obstructed Flandre's claws gently cluthing the ceiling structures so Mitori didn't at first notice her but one thing Flandre didn't take into account was that the orange glow casted slight shadows to the opposite wall and at one point Mitori noticed her shadow moving near the ceiling level. Mitori turned around immediately and locked eyes with Flandre who was startled a little by Mitori's sudden movement. The two locked eyes for a moment. Mitori then growled audibly and charged toward Flandre. Flandre then swapped out from her bat form and only barely dodged away from Mitori who had tried to ram her. Mitori turned around again and stopped. The two stared at each other again. Mitori was now hovering between Flandre and the opening on the wall. She really didn't want to spend any more time in that room, especially now when it was flooded but the same applied to Mitori. The water was now electrified so it was dangerous for anyone to touch.

"Hah, tell me, if you're so adamant on being right on this, then how are you going to give everyone a happy ending? What's your plan?" Mitori asked and laughed a bit.

"Those matters can wait for until I've dealt with your little gang. You're taking innocent lives! Do you call that a happy ending? Anyone but the one behind this all deserves a 'happy ending'," Flandre retorted and conjured her Lävatein again.

"So you say. It is true that our methods cost lives but at least we have a plan that is thought out and can actually also save lives. While you, you're just an angry lost child who caused a mess and now has no idea how to clean up after yourself," Mitori responded and grinned.

"Enough," Flandre exclaimed and charged at Mitori with her Lävatein readied. Flandre swung her blade toward Mitori who just covered her face and deflected Flandre's strikes with her arm guards. Nevertheless Flandre was pushing Mitori back toward the opening with each individual strike. Sparks flew as Flandre hacked and slashed at Mitori who was like a fortress deflecting Flandre's attacks. They were slowly approaching the doorway out from the room when Flandre glanced down and saw that they were no longer above water as the ground was raising slightly and most of it was staying in the room or either pouring into the chasm where she had originally come from. Mitori on the other hand had been waiting for this kind of a small slip up because Flandre's next strike would come a little bit later. Mitori deflected it like usual but this time she opened her guard and grabbed Flandre by her throat. She was apparently about to drive Flandre into the ground but Flandre too had expected something like this to happen the whole time she had forced Mitori backwards. So without wasting any time Flandre grabbed Mitori by her right arm with which she was holding Flandre, swung her lower body upwards so that her left foot flung over Mitori's right arm and then with the force of that momentum slammed the back of the heel of her right foot right into Mitori's face releasing her from Mitori's grip. Mitori was slammed into the ground and was left dazed a little as she picked herself up from the floor again. Flandre on the other hand made a run for the opening. When she exited the room the whole of the cavern opened before her eyes again. She could finally have a bird's eye view on the destruction Mitori had caused to her own facility. Platforms had been mostly destroyed. Rails had fallen into the molten steel below. Some were still even sticking out of it. A good portion of the walkways had also been obliterated. Flandre then glanced around herself hastily. She seemed to be standing on a some sort of a balcony with no apparent ways out other than back into the spire or downwards off the balcony. However, Flandre had no time to choose which would be better as she felt a tackle hitting her from behind and she was slammed against the guard rail.

"RAAAAH," She heard Mitori growl as she grabbed Flandre by her shoulders and pulled her away from the guard rail. She then spun Flandre around and punched her dead center to her face. While Mitori was just a kappa her punch certainly packed a punch and Flandre dropped to the ground like a sack off rocks. She was left dazed for a moment but quickly recovered her senses and wrapped her arms around Mitori's feet. Flandre then pulled her of her feet and jumped onto her. She tried to get a hold onto her head but Mitori managed to kick Flandre off and roll around so that she was now on top. Mitori was about to hit Flandre but Flandre grabbed her arm before she hit and pulled it into the ground away from her head. She then grabbed the guard rail with her remaining free hand and with a powerful jerk pulled a piece of it off and drove it straight into Mitori's side. Mitori cried out as she jumped off from Flandre while holding her sides. Flandre stared at her for a second before she too got up. There was surprisingly little amount of blood.

"Gah," Mitori groaned as she pulled the metal pipe Flandre had driven into her side off and threw it at Flandre. She covered her face and the piece of pipe just bounced off. But before Flandre could even lower her arms again she felt Mitori's grip tightening around her temples. She moved her arms away just in time to see Mitori's forehead before she headputted her. Flandre was disoriented a little and Mitori didn't waste this opportunity and grabbed Flandre again. This time from her shoulders so that she was clutching Flandre's shoulders with the opposing arms and her arms were crossing in front of Flandre's throat. She then started to squeeze. Flandre tried to back away but her back only hit the guard rail behind her. Mitori then tried to push Flandre over the guard rail but she managed to grasp the railing preventing her from tipping over. Mitori however didn't give up. She kept adding force and tried to force Flandre over the railing. Flandre's back was arched so far back that it was as if Mitori was trying to fold her.

But as Flandre was struggling to keep her grip she noticed that the piece of pipe that Mitori had thrown at her had landed just next to where she and Mitori were now struggling. She let go of the railing with her left hand and reached for the pipe. After a few seconds of fumbling she managed to grab it and as soon as she did she drove it straight back into Mitori's guts. This time through her stomach and out from the back. Mitori gasped at this and let go which allowed Flandre to straighten herself and let herself loose onto Mitori. Mitori was still clutching the pipe as Flandre lunged at her. Flandre drove her straight to the wall which knocked the pipe out of Mitori's stomach with sparks flying everywhere. Flandre then without hesitation went for Mitori's head and the mask that was placed in front of her eyes. After throwing a quick punch she took a firm grip and started pulling. Mitori screamed as she started pounding Flandre to get her to loosen her grip but Flandre didn't let go. She was pressing Mitori's head against the wall as she pulled the mask with all she got. With a powerful crackle the mask finally came flying off pulling wires out from the helmet and Mitori's now exposed eye sockets. Mitori screamed even louder and held her face. Flandre then backed away to see what effect it would have. She watched as Mitori covered the part of her face where the mask had been with her hands while blood and sparks were gushing out from the wounds on her side and stomach. Mitori then swiped the air in front of her like trying to grap Flandre or to see if she was still there. Flandre had backed away a little bit so that she was out of Mitori's reach. She was stating to feel pity towards her. Mitori just would not stop screaming as she fumbled with her hands trying to find anything to hold on to.

"Was this how she was? When she was blinded the first time?" Flandre thought silently to herself as she stared at Mitori. And almost right on que, as if Mitori had heard Flandre's thoughts she charged forward swaying this way and that with her arms apparently trying to get a hold onto Flandre. Flandre freaked out a little at this and started backing up to avoide her. However it wasn't long until her back hit the guard rail behind her and it was really close that she didn't trip and fall over it. Flandre had just enough time to recover her balance as Mitori's hands got a hold of Flandre's form and immediately when they did they started to squeeze. Mitori was still screaming but it was starting to turn into a pitiful wail. As she thrashed Flandre around apparently trying to throw her off the platfrom. At one point she threw Flandre against the guard rail so hard that it snapped and piece of it broke off. With nothing to lean against Flandre lurched backwards and Mitori who was still holding onto her was thrown over her.

People usually say that in a moment of shock one seconds feels like a dozen. Flandre got a first hand experience in this. She saw how Mitori flew over her and how the ledge she had just stood on came onto eye level and then above the eye level. As they fell Flandre felt Mitori still grasping her right hand which turned her around so that she saw what they were heading into. Below her opened the view from before. The molten lake below and the destroyed facility. What she also noticed was that they weren't falling straight to the depths and instead there was another slightly larger balcony below them. Upon seeing the this the world around Flandre started to regain its normal speed of time again.

Only couple seconds passed before Flandre crashed face first onto the edge of the platform. She could once again feel her ribs cracking under the impact and if there would have been any air left in her lungs she would have screamed. What further increased her pain came just a fraction of a moment later when the weight and the sudden stop of Mitori and her fall dislocated Flandre's right shoulder. Mitori had missed the platform slightly and would have fallen all the way to the bottom had she not been holding onto Flandre's arm. Flandre's initial reaction was to try to get up and back away from the edge but found herself unable when she couldn't get a proper grip from the ledge with her left hand and her right hand was screaming in pain.

"AAAAH," Flandre could hear Mitori's screams over the ringing in her ears. Flandre tried to fumble for a hand hold with her left arm but was still unable. After that she finally took a moment to really look at the situation they were in. Mitori was dangling from her dislocated right arm and waving around frantically while trying to find something to grab. Flandre herself was only two thirds on the platform leaving her upper body hanging in the air. Her ribs were practically on fire at this point as Mitori's weight was pressing them against the hard metal surface of that platform. Flandre watched as Mitori apparently tried to use the devices from earlier attached to her palms and feet but only thing that came out was a puff of smoke and sparks.

"PULL ME UP, PULL ME UP," Mitori then screamed as she kept flailing around. Flandre looked at her for a moment in surprise.

"Why should I?" Flandre finally asked between her teeth as the pain grew worse.

"YOU PRoMISED," Mitori screamed back even more desperately.

"I didn't promise anything," Flandre groaned back after a few seconds.

"YES YOU DID! A HAPPY ENDING FOR EVERYONE EXCEPT THE MAIN CULPRIT," Mitori yelled while trying to grab Flandre's arm with her other arm as well but only managed to slip a little bit further down.

"The last I heard you were still in leagues with them, so I see no reason why that should apply to you," Flandre retorted in almost digusted tone.

"I CAN TELL YOU WHO AND WHERE THEY ARE IF YOU JUST PULL ME UP! BY THE GODS JUST DON'T LET ME DIE," Mitori kept on screaming and it was then when Flandre finally stopped to think. In a way she was still responsible for Mitori's current situation and the least she could do for her was to spare her. Even if she had chosen to oppose her. Hell, she was justified to do so and hate Flandre.

"I can't pull you up like this! You have to give me your other arm," Flandre finally yelled as a response while gritting her teeth with the pain growing ever more powerful.

"I CAN'T! I CAN'T REACH, I CAN'T SEE," Mitori yelled back as she kept flailing trying to get a hand hold on something.

"You can reach, just try a little more," Flandre insisted and tried to reach down with her her left hand in hopes of getting a hold onto Mitori. That unfortunately proved to be impossible. Flandre just couldn't reach her. She could hear Mitori's breathing getting more rapid as she felt her hand slipping even further down. Her grip was now starting to become so tight it started to hurt over the pain of the dislocated arm.

"PULL ME UP FOR FUCK SAKE," Mitori screamed from the bottom of her lungs but Flandre knew there was nothing she could do to make it easier for her.

"I can't, you have to climb up yourself! Come on, you can reach," Flandre yelled back as to encourage her. She could hear Mitori's whimpers and see a tear forming onto the corner of her empty eye socket before it rolled into it and disappeared. Mitori then tried once more to flung her body more so that she could grab Flandre's arm with her other hand... and just like that it was all over. As Mitori was trying to search and reach for Flandre's arm her other hand slipped again and this time it slipped too far. Sweat had made Flandre's arm slippery so all it took was just a slight nudge and Mitori's hand that was coated in metal slipped. Flandre's eyes followed where Mitori's should have been the whole time as the distance between the two started growing. Not even a peep was uttered. From Flandre nor Mitori. She could only stare as Mitori's shocked face fell, and fell, and fell toward the blazing hot lake below.

The moment was almost surreal. Watching someone who you had just fought for your life, then sworn to save, die before your eyes is a conflicting moment. Well, Flandre didn't really see it because she closed her eyes and pulled herself fully to the platform before she could see what she already knew would happen. Flandre didn't even hear the impact as Mitori fell into the lake. Nor her screams. If there were ever any. Flandre simply rolled onto her back and laid there. Only sounds filling the otherwise silent space was the low humming of the machinery and the sounds of the boiling hot metal from below. Flandre silently reached for her right shoulder and with a sharp nudge relocated her shoulder. She didn't even let out a grunt of pain. In fact she didn't feel any pain. She didn't feel anything. She had never felt so empty. Should she even be like this? In the end Mitori had claimed that she hated her and tried to kill her. Was she even going to tell Flandre what she promised? But then again, what she could have even done? She was blinded and sounded truly afraid before she fell. Flandre couldn't help but to wonder if Mitori was so quickly willing to turn her boat and betray the people she had worked with, how deep her hatred truly was.

"Are you sad?" Flandre heard being asked. It was the reflection. She did not respond. She didn't feel like it.

"Look, this is no moment to grieve. If she would betray her comrades, who says she wouldn't also betray us? We're better off like this," The reflection continued like it wasn't a big deal. This made Flandre snap.

"BETRAY US!? Just what do you think she could have done to us!? And what do you mean _**us**_!? It has always been only me! I've done all the heavy lifting! And what you've done, huh!?" Flandre retorted furiously. She was outraged by what the reflection had to say. How could it even suggest that Mitori's death was a good thing.

"She orchestrated everything you see around you. Even if she herself would have been impotent, the creations around us certainly wouldn't and still aren't. And what do you mean I haven't done anything? It was I who got you this far. Without me you'd be still wondering the surface endlessly and without any aim," The reflection responded without any hint of emotion in its tone. This irritated Flandre even further.

"This far!? You mean what you've gotten me into is progress!? I still have absolutely no clue where I need to head and who am I supposed to defeat to just make this stop! And when I finally got someone to comply and tell that, she dies! Where were you just a moment ago huh!? Why didn't you come up with a witty plan to make the most out of that situation!?" Flandre roared and pulled the piece of mirror from her pocket as she sat up her ribs cracking ever so painfully.

"I told you already that I am what you want me to be. And so far you've wanted my help. So I've given all that I can. But you have to understand that there was nothing I could have done. Look at me. As you can tell I cannot intervene physically," The reflection said as Flandre brought the piece of mirror before her face and stared at her image reflecting back.

"Is that so? Well do you know what I really think you are!? You're just a figment of my imagination! You're not real! You're just hindrance and evil! And I don't want you," Flandre practically screamed at the piece of mirror she was holding just inches away from her face. Flandre was expecting the reflection to be surprised or shocked but the only one who was surprised was Flandre when she didn't see any reaction from the reflection what so ever. It only stared back emotionlessly until its face started to darken.

"Don't do this now. If you do, you'll return to dancing to the culprits tune. Snap out of it, you have to keep it together. Keep initiating action," The reflection said with firm tone and look on its face. There was a silence. Flandre glared at the reflection as it kept frowning at her. After a few moments its emotionless stare had turned into a cold scowl.

"I only wanted to know if you counted them," The reflection simply uttered before Flandre growled and threw the piece of mirror over the ledge and into the same depths where Mitori had fallen. The quietness returned only broken by the low humming of the machinery. Flandre stared at the ledge behind which the piece of mirror had disappeared in anticipation of what would happen next or if anything would. The voice of the reflection had gone quiet. Had she managed to get rid of it? Should she have gotten rid of it?

"Are you still there?" Flandre then asked gently out loud. Her voice echoed gently around the cavern but received no answer. She waited for a moment, then another and even another more but it was still quiet. Flandre then let out a slight chuckle.

"I did it. I got rid of it. I really did. I showed it that I'm in control," Flandre uttered between almost impulsive chuckles as she started to twirl her hair around her finger. She then fumbled herself onto her feet while still caressing her hair with her other hand. Her right hand was still practically on fire even if she had popped it back onto its place, not mentioning her ribs that she could feel cracking a little with each breath she took. However Flandre did not seem to care as she stumbled a little as she found her balance again and took few clumsy steps toward the ledge.

"Yeah!? How do you like me now, huh!? You think you can control me! But you cannot," Flandre yelled to the depths into which she had thrown the piece of mirror. The only voice that responded was the distant rumbling and bubbling of that blazing lake. Flandre stared down toward it for a moment with fury painted upon her face. She then took a deep inhale and almost fell limp as she suddenly fell to her back onto the platform. Flandre layed there, eyes closed for many minutes, only breathing steadily before she opened her eyes slowly again.

"No one controls me," Flandre uttered with confident yet serious glare as she pushed herself to sit up again.

"No one," She uttered once more as she stood up from the platform while holding her head. Even after her dislocated arm and fractured ribs the headache she had at the moment was the worst by far and she didn't know why she even had it. Had she not noticed it before? Impossible. She had been fully aware of the pain in her arm and her chest so had it been there she would have noticed. Flandre took a hold onto the nearby guard rail to better keep herself standing up. Without uttering another word Flandre started backing away from the ledge and back toward the spire that was still hanging firmly from the ceiling even when its lower half got blown off.

As Flandre kept building the distance between her and the edge of the platform from where Mitori had fallen and she had thrown the piece of mirror, her sudden and mysterious headache started to ease up. And as it did Flandre quickened her pace. The platform was connected to the spire and had a similiar path leading into it as in the room from where they had dropped onto the current platform. Flandre wasted no time heading back into the spire without even taking a glance behind her. As she entered the spire again the sounds of the cavern were left to the outside and it became nearly all quiet again. Only slight dripping sound of the water could be heard. Flandre took a glance around herself. The spire was dark, quiet and still. All the water from before had apparently flowed into the central chasm and fell into the depths. Some of the metal surfaces were still wet but this didn't get Flandre too concerned. With stone cold expressionless look on her face Flandre started to fly up toward the top room again. When she had chased Mitori up the spire earlier it had been lit up with many, many lights but now it seemed that the power had cut off completely. It seemed that the water had ruined pretty much all the electric machinery.

The flight upwards didn't take more than a minute until she emerged from the chasm to the large control room. The floor still had multiple puddles here and there but most of it had already drained down the chasm. Flandre landed carefully onto one of the control panels. She didn't want to get electrocuted but she still wanted to take a good look at the room. It was a complete mess. Panels messed up and torn, everything was wet so the electric circuits had broken. Flandre then made her way toward the one monitor she remembered from earlier. The one that had shown the video feed from above ground. It took a moment for her to remember where it was but once she finally found it it had no use for her. The screen had been cracked and the whole monitor had fallen from the ceiling to where it had been attached to. She picked up the cracked screen and stared at it for a moment. The shiny surface reflected nothing but the dark outlines of the machinery behind Flandre but she could not be seen in the reflection. Flandre grunted, satisfied by this fact as she dropped the screen back to the floor adding more cracks to its already damaged surface.

"The world around you is just an illusion... They wont control me... It's just an illusion," Flandre whispered to herself as she started making her way back toward the center of the room and the chasm. Flandre remembered that the chasm did continue further up even if this seemed to be the top floor. She assumed that that chasm could take her all the way back to the surface. Flandre walked all the way to the edge of the chasm and at first peered down. Deep down she could see the orange glow of the molten metal and some of the platfroms, walkways and stairs that had been destroyed as she had chased Mitori. She then peered upwards. It was hard to say for how far up the chasm continued because it had no lights and it got shrouded in darkness fairly quickly. Pondering that was useless however. Flandre was determined on getting out of that place as soon as possible so without wasting even a single moment more she took off and headed toward the darkness above.

The whole trek she made toward the ground level, she did in complete apathy. She did not stop to ponder what had happened between her and Mitori. Actually she did not think about it at all. She did not stop, did not speak, didn't think anything else but getting out of there. The walls of the chasm had become completely smooth without any walkways or platfroms anywhere. It was just dead straight shaft upwards so there really wasn't any place for Flandre to stop and rest. Frankly she didn't even feel the need to rest. She didn't at first realize it but she felt oddly refreshed. Somewhat alive even. Had she stopped to think about this newly found feeling she would have probably found it rather odd, scary even. But her mind was set toward only one goal, the surface.

It took her a little over a whole day before she noticed that the shaft was getting wider and the air was getting cooler. This brought Flandre's mind back to reality as she started paying attention to her surroundings again. A few hours later she realized a familiar reddish glow coming from above. The walls of the shaft were at this point turning more into slopes than walls as the iron walls started to disappear into the intruding rubble that was almost pouring from the above. Flandre increased her pace until she was no longer in a shaft. It was no more like a giant sink hole. This whole time her mind did not even give a hint to the thoughts about what had just happened. What Mitori was going to reveal to her, what happened to her and what she did to the piece of mirror. She didn't need those thoughts, she didn't want them. For she _was _in control. Or so she kept telling herself adamantly as she flew towards the surface.

She finally landed onto the slopes leading upwards and started making her way all the way to the top by foot. Looking back, the whole chasm had widened so much that it looked like a funnel. A gigantic funnel. Flandre breathed in the still, yet refreshingly cool air as she neared the crest of the hill she was climbing and the surface level again. When she had arrived to the outside world she had thought that the air there was too warm and oppressive to her liking but after what she had gone through down in those caverns she was more than pleased to be back above ground. These thoughts were interrupted suddenly though when Flandre set her foot onto the ground level for the first time in days. Something before her feet caught her eye. Something unnatural. Something that shouldn't be there. Something she had seen before. Just on the edge of the slope leading back down toward the facility deep underground, before Flandre's feet, straight from the iron, plastic and glass rubble was growing a single, healthy, yellow sunflower.


End file.
